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ABRAHAM 
LINCOLN 

By Some Men Who Kne^v Him 

BEING PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF 

JUDGE OWEN T. REEVES 
HON. JAMES S. EWING 
COL. RICHARD P. MORGAN 
JUDGE FRANKLIN BLADES 
JOHN W. BUNN 



WITH INTRODUCTION BY 

HON. ISAAC N. PHILLIPS 



PUBLISHED BY 

PANTAGRAPH PRINTING & STATIONERY CO. 
Bloomington, Illinois 



£"45' 



Copyright, 1910, by 

Pantagraph Printing Sz Stationery Co. 

Bloomington, III. 



CCI.A28()756 



To those who have read volumes of Lincoln 
biographies in a vain effort to form a correct 
estimate of Lincoln, the man, this book is re- 
spectfully dedicated. 



PREFACE 

In the publication of this unique little vol- 
ume, we are justified by the fact that so much 
unreliable information has been published con- 
cerning Lincoln. We feel a laudable ambition 
to set right, so far as possible, erroneous im- 
pressions. 

We have neither added to nor taken from, 
tliese personal recollections of honorable gen- 
tlemen who lived the life as Lincoln lived it, 
and who are, therefore, capable of arriving at 
a fairly accurate estimate of his true character. 

The Publishers. 



INTRODUCTION 

I am asked to write an introduction to this 
little book. I confess I feel a very considerable 
interest in the subject of it and am very glad to 
see it go forth to the world. The book represents 
a praiseworthy effort on the part of its publishers — 
The Pantagraph Printing & Stationery Company, 
of Bloomington, Illinois — to preserve in a perma- 
nent form some original evidence upon the question, 
"What kind of a man was Lincoln?" 

I know very many people have of late been 
telling the world what kind of a man Lincoln was, 
and have been relating many incidents, facts and 
recollections concerning him. On the centenary 
of Lincoln's birth, the newspapers of the country 
were flooded with interviews and communications 
from all sorts of people. There are, in fact, very 
few men now living who knew Abraham Lincoln 
at all well, or who saw much of him, and who have 
at the same time definite personal recollections 
concerning him. The recollections here given are 
given by persons who, I know, really did know 



Introduction 

Lincoln. They are likewise persons who would 
not pretend to know things they do not know. 

There were never more than a very few men who 
could at any time pretend to have been on terms 
at all intimate with Lincoln, because Lincoln took 
but few, if any, into his deeper confidences. The 
men whose recollections are given in this book do 
not pretend that they were on deeply confidential 
terms with Lincoln. Nobody living can now 
pretend to that, and the man who does pretend to 
it may be generally set down as mistaken. The 
men who speak here have some memories and 
recollections concerning Lincoln and they give 
us these memories for what they are worth. 

It is useless to assure readers that the writer 
of this introduction would never have been active 
in helping to cause these recollections to be pub- 
lished, if he had not believed that they set forth 
the real truth, so far as they go, concerning Lincoln. 
These men were all quite close friends of my own. 
I know each of them to be a man who would not 
pervert the truth in order to make a mouthable 
or amusing story, and I further know that the 



INTRODUCTION 

memory of each of these gentlemen was, when he 
wrote, very distinct and clear. 

I am exceedingly gratified to get this testimony 
on record, where the future historian may find it, 
for we may be sure the real life of Lincoln has not 
yet been written, and, unless the confusion sur- 
rounding the subject shall clear up more rapidly 
than it bids fair to do, the real life of Lincoln will 
not be written for at least another fifty years. It 
will quite surely not be written before the gen- 
eration of men who knew Lincoln in life are all 
dead and gone. It was so with Washington, and 
it is going to be so with Lincoln. Washington was 
so far perverted by would-be story tellers and 
biographers, that only the man who now studies 
Washington very carefully really knows what man- 
ner of man he was, and, sad to say, the men who 
study his life with care are now very few. In the 
early period, he was much belittled by busy-bodies 
who pretended to know all about him. 

When preparations were in progress in Blooming- 
ton for the celebration of the centenary of Lincoln's 
birthday, being on a committee of the Grand Army 



INTRODUCTION 

Post of Bloomington which had in charge the 
selection of speakers, I insisted that men should 
be selected to speak who had a personal knowledge 
of Lincoln. We already had plenty of eulogies; 
what we needed was facts. I knew that the men 
who really had valuable information were apt to 
be modest men, who would not rush forward to be 
interviewed or to make speeches. Two notable 
speeches that were made at that celebration on the 
afternoon of the 12th of February, 1909, namely, 
that of Hon. Adlai E. Stevenson and that of Judge 
Reuben M. Benjamin, both of Bloomington, have 
already been published in MacChesney's book, 
"The Tribute of A Century," and there appear 
under copyright. Another speech from the same 
platform and on the same occasion was made by 
Judge Owen T. Reeves, likewise of Bloomington 
and is included in this book. Another address 
setting forth some recollections of Lincoln was 
made on the evening of that day at Bloomington 
by Hon. James S. Ewing, before the Illinois School- 
masters' Club, and that speech likewise is given 
in this book. At Pontiac, Illinois, where a like 

10 



INTRODUCTION 

celebration was held on the same day, Colonel 
Richard Price Morgan, of Dwight, 111., delivered 
an address, giving some recollections of Lincoln, 
and Col. Morgan's address is also printed here- 
At my special solicitation Judge Franklin Blades, 
of Pomona, California, wrote out his recollections 
of Lincoln, which will be found very interesting 
and are included here. 

I venture to call special attention to the set of 
resolutions, written by Lincoln, and passed by the 
Illinois legislature in January, 1861, as related by 
Judge Blades. These have hitherto escaped atten- 
tion. Judge Blades, I am proud to say, has long 
been my personal friend. His testimony on the 
question of the authorship of these resolutions is 
absolutely conclusive. I know him to be as 
conscientious a man as ever lived, exceedingly 
careful not to state more than he knows. 

John W. Bunn, of Springfield, Illinois, is well 
known to be about the last survivor in Springfield 
who knew Lincoln well before the war, and, at my 
special solicitation, he has written out some of his 
recollections of Lincoln, and it is a great pleasure 

11 



INTRODUCTION 

to me to present them in this book. I regard Mr. 
Bunn as really the best authority upon Lincoln 
in the period before the Civil War. 

Much has been said about Lincoln's supposed 
propensity to spin yarns and tell doubtful anec- 
dotes. That Lincoln was a sort of fabulist and 
illustrated his points by incidents and remembered 
happenings, is true, but biographers, and particu- 
larly would-be "old familiar friends" have so greatly 
over-stated Lincoln's story telling propensity that 
it is well that men who really knew him well 
and can be relied upon to state facts, should be 
heard on the subject. 

Another class of writers have seemed exceedingly 
anxious to make it appear that Lincoln came 
literally from nothing. The Bible tells us that 
men do not gather figs from thistles, but some of 
the biographers would have us believe that this 
saying of the Holy Writ does not apply to Lincoln. 
Many of them make a special point of belittling 
and discrediting his parents and ancestors in order 
to produce a striking contrast for the purpose of 
eulogy. Such persons are, in nearly every in- 

12 



INTRODUCTION 

stance, animated more by a desire to attract atten- 
tion to themselves than by a desire to really depict 
the great man who lived, worked and aspired, out 
here in Illinois, and who at last attained to the hard 
but glorious privilege of martyrdom for his cause. 

Isaac N. Phillips. 



Personal Recollections 
and Estimates of Lincoln 

OWEN T. REEVES 



IS 



JUDGE OWEN T. REEVES 

Judge Owen T. Reeves was born December 18, 
1829, in Ross County, Ohio. He was graduated 
from the Ohio Wesleyan University in 1850, and 
three years later received from that University 
the degree of Master of Arts. In 1 888 he received 
the degree of L.L.D. from Monmouth College, in 
Illinois. From 1850 to 1854 he was engaged in 
teaching. He came to Bloomington, Illinois, in 
October, 1 854, which place has since been his home. 
Judge Reeves was admitted to the bar before leaving 
Ohio and commenced the practice of the law when 
he settled at Bloomington. In 1861 he was ap- 
pointed city clerk and city attorney of Blooming- 
ton. He was elected a circuit judge March 1, 
1877, and remained on the bench until June, 1891. 
The last three years of his judicial service he was, 
by assignment of the Illinois Supreme Court, a 
judge of the Illinois Appellate Court for the Fourth 
District. Since 1891 he has been Dean of the 
Bloomington Law School. In the Civil War he 
was Colonel of the 70th Illinois Infantry. Judge 
Reeves was one of the most impartial and most 
clear-headed judges that ever held a nisi prius 
court, as the lawyers who practiced before him 

will universally testify. 

16 




JUDGE OWEN T. REEVES 



Personal Mecollections 
and Estimates of Lincoln 



OWEN T. REEVES 

I recall with marked distinctness my im- 
pressions on my first meeting Mr. Lincoln 
in March, 1855. I had heard much of him 
before I met him. His candidacy for the 
United States Senate before the General 
Assembly in January, 1855, had focused 
my attention upon him. The unusual com- 
plimentary comments by those who had 
known him many years — some of whom 
were directly opposed to him politically — 
riveted my attention to this unusual man. 
No wonder, then, that when I met him I 
was specially attracted to a careful analysis 
of how he impressed me, and that this analy- 
sis is still distinct in memory. 

17 



LINCOLN — By MEN 

Speaking generally, I may say that I now 
recall clearly that I was deeply impressed 
v^^ith the fact that I had met a man widely 
different from the ordinary man of distinc- 
tion. There was something, just what not 
clearly defined, in him, that stamped him in 
my conception as a man of marked superior- 
ity intellectually. 

Lincoln's personality was to me a revela- 
tion, different from any other personality I 
had ever tried to measure and comprehend, 
although it had been my good fortune in 
prior years to have had personal relations 
with a goodly number of men of wide and 
well-merited distinction. He had an individ- 
uality that was singularly impressive. Alto- 
gether, the problem of his true measure as a 
man w^as complex and not easy of solution. 
To me Mr. Lincoln was a continuous study, 
and the farther the study was carried, the 

18 



WHO KNEW HIM 

higher the estimate of him arose until, to me, 
he stood out as a veritable marvel among 
men. 

From March, 1855, to the Spring of 
1 860, I met Mr. Lincoln often and became 
quite intimately acquainted with him. He 
attended all of the sessions of the McLean 
County Circuit Court during that period. I 
heard him try many cases — some of large 
importance, and many ordinary cases. I 
recall his assisting the State's Attorney in 
the prosecution of one Wyatt for murder, a 
hard-fought case in which Leonard Swett 
succeeded in acquitting Wyatt of murder, 
on the ground of insanity. He appeared 
for plaintiff, Meshach Pike, in a suit to set 
aside the sale of the Pike Hotel at Bloom- 
ington, on the ground of fraud on the part 
of the purchaser. Judge T. L. Dickey, of 
Ottawa, and local attorneys appeared for 

19 



LINCOLN — By MEN 

the defense, and Lincoln won out. He de- 
fended a chancery suit in which I appeared 
for complainant, by which it was sought to 
set aside a sale of school lands, which re- 
sulted in favor of the defendant. He rep- 
resented the Illinois Central Railroad Com- 
pany in its suit, contesting the validity of an 
assessment by the county of McLean of 
county taxes against the railroad company, 
in which he was successful in defeating the 
tax. This suit settled the non-liability of the 
Illinois Central Railroad Company for local 
taxes for the full period of its charter. 

Lincoln was engaged during this period 
in the trial of a great variety of cases, his 
employment being sufficient to maintain his 
presence in court practically during the en- 
tire sessions of the court. 

It is not my purpose, in the brief time al- 
lotted me, to speak further of Lincoln as a 

20 



WHO KNEW HIM 

lawyer. Referring to Lincoln's personal 
characteristics, I will say that to portray Lin- 
coln as ill-mannered, uncouth, unrefined in 
sentiment, the indulger of vulgarity of speech, 
a buffoon and yarn-spinner, is a complete 
and outrageous caricature, as I knew him. 
His mind, in all its serious moods, which 
was its prevailing condition, was occupied 
by lofty thoughts upon subjects of the high- 
est concern, developing a philosophy of life 
in all its myriad phases, based upon sound 
reason and exalted conceptions. 

I heard Lincoln tell hundreds of anec- 
dotes and stories, but never one that was not 
told to illustrate or give point to some sub- 
ject or question that had been the theme of 
conversation, or that was not suggested by 
an anecdote or story told by someone else. 
This fact found an apt illustration, when 
Lincoln was asked what he thought of 

21 



LINCOL N — By MEN 

Hood's army after its sweeping defeat at 
the battle of Nashville, Tenn., by General 
Thomas. Lincoln said the question remind- 
ed him of the story of an Illinois farmer 
who had been sorely annoyed by a maraud- 
ing dog. The farmer procured a piece of 
meat into which there was put a powerful 
explosive, and placed the meat in the path 
that the dog would take to reach the place 
where his usual depredations were commit- 
ted. He tied a string, saturated with gaso- 
line, to the piece of meat and took a position 
behind a tree from which he could see the 
dog as he approached. He fired the string 
in time to reach the meat at the same time 
as the dog. The result was the dog gulped 
the meat and instantly there was an explo- 
sion. When the farmer was asked what was 
the effect on the dog, he replied, "That dog, 
as a dog, will not ever again amount to 

22 



WHO KNEW HIM 

much." So Lincoln's answer to the question 
asked him was, "I don't think Hood's army, 
as an army, will hereafter amount to much." 
A short time ago, I came across a state- 
ment said to have been made by Lincoln, 
during the war, when challenged to tell a 
story. He said: '*I believe I have the popu- 
lar reputation of being a story-teller, but I 
do not deserve the name in any general 
sense; for it is not the story itself, but its 
purpose or effect, that interests me. I often 
avoid a long and useless discussion by others, 
or a laborious explanation on my own part, 
by a short story that illustrates my point of 
view. So, too, the sharpness of a refusal or 
the edge of a rebuke may be blunted by an 
appropriate story so as to save wounded feel- 
ing and yet serve the purpose. No, I am 
not simply a story-teller, but story-telling as 
an emollient saves me much friction and dis- 
tress." 

23 



LINCOLN — By MEN 

Lincoln was the apostle of the common 
people. Their rights, their conditions, their 
hardships, their opportunities, their aspira- 
tions, their hopes, their joys, their sorrows — 
all these were subjects upon which his mind 
brooded and sought to work out plans for 
their betterment and happiness. No man I 
ever met knew the common people better 
than he, or was in closer sympathy with 
them. Having sprung from the innumerable 
common throng, his heart never ceased to 
beat in sympathy with them. Besides, he 
was endowed with that best sense — common 
sense. This, with his broad, clear grasp of 
every subject that touched the interests of the 
masses, made him pre-eminently the advo- 
cate of the rights of the common people. 

Up to the time of the repeal of the Mis- 
souri Compromise in 1 854, Lincoln had not 
become recognized as a great leader in mat- 

24 



WHO KNEW HIM 

ters of state. He had been active as a 
Whig on the stump, and had served one 
term in Congress, besides a number of terms 
in the legislature, but, practically, after the 
close of his term in Congress, he returned to 
the practice of law, and devoted himself 
almost exclusively to his profession. The 
repeal of the Missouri Compromise made 
quite an upheaval in political parties and 
started a new movement. 

Lincoln at an early date became settled 
in the conviction that human slavery was 
both in the abstract and concrete, morally 
wrong. While this conviction grew with 
the years, he recognized that slavery, as it 
existed in the Southern States, was pro- 
tected by the Constitution, and any interfer- 
ence with slavery as it existed in the South 
was unwarranted and could not be supported 
simply by a belief that it was wrong. Hence, 

25 



L I N C OLN — By MEN 

he refused to co-operate with what was 
known as the Abolition party, and had no 
sympathy with its doctrines. However, 
while this was true, he was always unalter- 
ably opposed to the extension of slavery into 
the territories. He had clearly worked out, 
in his consideration of the subject of slavery 
as it existed in the Southern States, that, so 
far as its continued existence there was in- 
volved, there was no power outside of those 
States to interfere with it, but v/hile this was 
true and to be conscientiously observed, 
there was no reason why opposition might 
not be made to its extension into the terri- 
tories of the United States. 

Lincoln went a step farther in his speech 
at Springfield in June, 1858, in which he 
declared: **A house divided against itself 
cannot stand. I believe that this Govern- 
ment cannot endure permanently half-slave 

26 



WHO KNEW HIM 

and half-free. I do not expect the Union 
to be dissolved — I do not expect the house 
to fall — but I do expect it will cease to be 
divided. It will become all one thing or all 
the other. Either the opponents of slavery 
will arrest the further spread of it and place 
it where the public mind shall rest in the 
belief that it is in the course of ultimate ex- 
tinction, or its advocates will push it for- 
ward till it shall become alike lawful in all 
the States, old as well as new. North as well 
as South." 

This prediction of his was predicated 
upon his belief that the conviction of the 
great wrong of slavery would in time work 
out, in some way, its extinction; either that 
or the opinions of men would change as to 
the moral character of slavery, 50 that it 
would come into use the country over — 
plainly his belief was that the sentiment 

27 



LINCOLN — By MEN 

against slavery would not cease, but con- 
tinue to grow, and, eventually, would work 
out the ultimate extinction of slavery. 

Most naturally, with his deep-seated con- 
viction on the subject of slavery, Lincoln at 
once became absorbed in the questions 
which sprung out of the repeal of the Mis- 
souri Compromise, and he at once became a 
leader of the forces that opposed this repeal. 
October third, 1 854, Douglas, at the State 
Fair in Springfield, made his great speech 
in defense of the Kansas and Nebraska bill 
which repealed the Missouri Compromise, 
and by which Judge Douglas introduced his 
doctrine of popular sovereignty, under which 
the people in the territories were left to de- 
cide whether they would have slavery or 
not. October fourth, 1854, Lincoln, at the 
same fair, replied to Judge Douglas, con- 
tending that by the Missouri Compromise, 

28 



WHO KNEW HIM 

which covered the territory of Kansas and 
Nebraska, they had been solemnly dedi- 
cated to freedom, and slavery prohibited 
therein. 

On October third, 1 854, what was called 
an Anti-Nebraska Convention was held at 
Springfield, at which twenty-six delegates 
were present, mostly well known Abolition- 
ists. Lincoln declined to attend this con- 
vention, as he was not in sympathy with the 
doctrines of the Abolitionists. Moses, in his 
history of Illinois, says that Lincoln met 
Douglas in joint debate in October, 1854, 
but does not state v/here, and that he fol- 
lowed Douglas ul Peoria and other places. 

Lincoln was elected to the Legislature 
from Sangamon County in the fall of 1 854. 
When the returns of the election were made, 
and it was shown that the opponents of the 
repeal of the Missouri Compromise were in 

29 



LINCOLN — By MEN 

the ascendancy in the General Assembly, 
as Lincoln was recognized as the leader in 
the Anti-Nebraska movement and the prob- 
able candidate for United States Senator to 
succeed Judge Breese, he declined to accept 
his credentials as a member of the Legis- 
lature, and a special election v/as held to 
fill the vacancy. 

When the General Assembly proceeded 
to the election of a United States senator, 
it was found that five of the Anti-Nebraska 
forces were old-time Democrats, and they 
refused to vote for Lincoln, who had always 
been a Whig. The result was that, in order 
to elect a senator who was opposed to the 
Kansas-Nebraska bill, Lincoln's friends, at 
his special instance, voted for Trumbull, 
v/ho had always been a Democrat. The 
election of Trumbull to the Senate still left 
Lincoln the leader of the party in Illinois. 

30 



WHO K N E W HIM 

His correspondence with Judge Trum- 
bull, lately published in a leading magazine, 
demonstrates that Lincoln kept his finger on 
the pulse of public sentiment and suggested 
the course to be pursued by the party in Illi- 
nois. In May, 1856, the first Illinois Re- 
publican State Convention was held in 
Bloomington. Lincoln was the central fig- 
ure in that convention and made, what all 
who heard it pronounced, the greatest speech 
of his life. Most unfortunately, the speech 
was not reported and is now known as the 
"Lost Speech." I heard the speech and 
have read what purports to be the speech, 
as reproduced by Mr. Whitney, and must 
say that the reproduction does not strike me 
as being in any sense the speech which Lin- 
coln made and which I heard. 

I must hasten to speak briefly of the cam- 
paign of 1858. The Republican State 

31 



LINCOLN — By MEN 

Convention was held at Springfield, June 
16, 1858, which nominated Lincoln for 
United States senator. It was at this con- 
vention that he made the speech containing 
the words above quoted: "A house divided 
against itself cannot stand,'* etc. 

Moses, in history, says that when this 
speech was prepared it was submitted by 
Lincoln to his friends, and they all opposed 
that part of the speech. Lincoln said to 
them: "The time has come when these 
sentiments should be uttered, and if it is 
decreed that I should go down because of 
this speech, then let me go down linked to 
the truth — let me die in the advocacy of 
what is just and right.*' 

In July, 1858, Douglas made his first 
speech in the campaign of 1 858, at Chicago, 
from the balcony of the Tremont House, 
in which he vigorously attacked Lincoln's 

32 



WHO K N E W HIM 

speech before the Republican Convention 
at Springfield in June. The next night Lin- 
coln replied to Judge Douglas from the 
same place. July 1 6, 1 858, Judge Douglas 
left Chicago for Springfield, and is reported 
to have spoken at Bloomington en route; 
and on July I 7, 1 858, he delivered a set 
speech at Springfield, to v/hich Lincoln re- 
plied the next day. July 24, Lincoln chal- 
lenged Douglas to joint debate, which a 
week later was accepted by Douglas and 
arrangements for the joint debates con- 
cluded. 

The first debate occurred at Ottawa, 
August 21, 1858. At this time, Judge 
Douglas propounded seven questions to be 
answered by Lincoln at the next debate, 
to be held at Freeport. Before the Free- 
port meeting, Lincoln held a conference in 
Bloomington with his friends, at which he 

33 



LINCOLN — By MEN 

submitted his answers to Judge Douglas* 
questions. As to these there was no contro- 
versy. Then Lincoln announced to his 
friends that he proposed, at the Freeport 
meeting, to submit to Judge Douglas four 
questions, the principal one as follows: "Can 
the people in any territory, by any lawful 
means, against the wishes of any citizen of 
the United States, exclude Slavery from the 
territory, prior to its admission as a State?" 
Lincoln's friends, except Jesse W, Fell, in- 
sisted that Judge Douglas would answer the 
question in a way that would certainly 
result in his election to the Senate and defeat 
Lincoln, to which Lincoln only replied that 
if he did so answer, he could never be presi- 
dent, and he, Lincoln, regarded the battle 
of ] 860 for the presidency as infinitely more 
important than the senatorship. 

It should be remembered that before this 

34 



WHO KNEW HIM 

time the Dred Scott decision had been ren- 
dered by the United States Supreme Court, 
which held that slave-holders had the right 
to take with them into any territory of the 
United States, their slaves, and hold them 
there so long as the territory remained a 
territory. Judge Douglas did reply as Lin- 
coln's friends anticipated, that the Legis- 
lature of a Territory, by unfriendly legis- 
lation, might practically exclude slavery — 
that this was but carrying out his doctrine of 
popular sovereignty. Of course, this was 
in direct conflict with the Dred Scott deci- 
sion, and this answer of Judge Douglas was 
spread broadcast over the South. The re- 
sult was the secession of the South from the 
Democratic National Convention of 1860, 
and, in the end, the defeat of Judge Douglas 
for the presidency. 

Judge Douglas, in the House of Repre- 
ss 



LINCOLN — By MEN 

sentatives, and in the United States Senate, 
had estabhshed a national reputation as a 
debater. No man was better furnished with 
the weapons of debate, or exhibited more 
skill in their use, than he. On the other 
hand, Mr. Lincoln had only a State repu- 
tation, extending, perhaps, to some of the 
adjoining States, but no national reputation 
as a debater. In Illinois, Lincoln had the 
reputation of a logical debater. He had 
already measured swords with Judge Doug- 
las, and each had received a taste of the 
other's metal. Doubtless, Judge Douglas* 
nation-wide reputation attracted marked 
attention to the debate the country over, and 
thereby Mr. Lincoln was brought into a na- 
tional notoriety and prominence which later, 
in 1860, resulted in his nomination by the 
Republican party as its candidate for the 
presidency. 

36 



WHO KNEW HIM 

No sketch of Mr. Lincoln can be in any 
sense adequate which does not deal with his 
astonishing power over words. It is not too 
much to say of him, that he is among the 
greatest masters of prose ever produced by 
the Enghsh race. On this subject of Lin- 
coln's power of expression, I will quote from 
a writer of the highest standing, a portrayal 
of the characteristics which gave to Lincoln 
his classic style of expression, that will, for 
all time, be the envy of those who strive for 
excellence in speech. 

"The most striking characteristic of Lin- 
coln's style may be found in the record from 
the beginning. Candor was a trait of the 
man and not less of his verbal manner. His 
natural honesty of character, his desire to 
make his meaning clear, literally to demon- 
strate what he believed to be the truth with 
mathematical precision — this gave to his ex- 
pression both attractiveness and force. The 
simplicity of his nature, his lack of self- 



37 



LINCOLN — By MEN 

consciousness and vanity, tended to simplic- 
ity and directness of diction. 

An eminent lawyer has said — perhaps 
with exaggeration — that, without the mas- 
sive reasoning of Webster or the resplendent 
rhetoric of Burke, Lincoln exceeded them 
both in his faculty of statement. His style 
was affected, too, by the personal traits of 
consideration of those of a contrary mind, 
his toleration and large human sympathy. 
But Lincoln's style might have had all these 
qualities and yet not have carried as it did. 
Beyond these traits comes the miracle — the 
cadence of his prose and its traits of pathos 
and of imagination. Lincoln's prose, at its 
height and when his spirit was stirred by 
aspiration and resolve, affects the soul like 
noble music. That is the strain in the two 
inaugurals, in the Gettysburg address, and 
in his letter of consolation to a bereaved 
mother, which moves the hearts of genera- 
tion after generation. 

"Lincoln's power of expression was evi- 
dently one of the most effective elements of 
his leadership. The sympathy and tolera- 
tion which made his writings and speeches so 
persuasive, assisted his leadership not only 

38 



WHO KNEW HIM 

in convincing his listeners and in endearing 
him, the leader, to individuals and the 
masses, but helped him as a statesman to 
take large and humane views and to adopt 
measures in keeping with these views. To 
that sympathy and that toleration a reunited 
country is under constant obligation, not 
merely for the result of a successfully con- 
ducted war — successful in the true interests 
of both antagonists — but for the continuing 
possibility of good feeling between the sec- 
tions. To think that in the preparatory po- 
litical struggle and during the four years of 
the hideous conflict, Abraham Lincoln, 
though his spirit was strained almost beyond 
human endurance by the harassments of his 
position, though misunderstood and foully 
calumniated by public antagonists, and 
thwarted and plotted against by some of 
his own supporters, uttered not one word of 
violence or rancor — not a phrase which, after 
the cessation of hostilities, might return to 
embitter the defeated combatants or be re- 
sented by their descendants!" 

I will close this brief sketch with the 

closing sentence of the estimate of Mr. 

39 



LINCOLN — By MEN 

Lincoln by Mr. Herndon. his long-time law 
partner: "Take him all in all, he was one 
of the best, wisest, greatest and noblest of 
men in all the ages." 



40 



Speech of 
Hon. James S. Ew^in^ 



HON. JAMES S. EWING 

James S. Ewing was born in 1835, in territory 
then a part of McLean County, but now included 
in Woodford County, Illinois. In 1840 his father, 
long a leading business man, removed to Bloom- 
ington and was at one time mayor of that city. Mr. 
Ewing prepared for college at a school called 
Jubilee College, situated in Peoria County. Later 
he graduated from Center College at Danville, 
Kentucky. He read law at Bloomington and was 
admitted to practice in January, 1859, after which 
he spent a year in the office of Hon. John C. Bullitt, 
a leading attorney of Philadelphia, and, while in 
the latter city, he attended a course of law lectures. 
Since that time Mr. Ewing has practiced law at 
Bloomington, Illinois, with the exception of four 
years, during which time — 1893-1897 — he was 
United States Minister to Belgium. He has al- 
ways been a democrat, and always active in State 
and National politics, but was never a candidate 
for any political office. Mr. Ewing is still living 
at Bloomington, Illinois. 



44 




HON. JAMES S. EWING 



Speech of 
Hon. James S. Ew^in^ 

At thk Banquet of the Illinois Schoolmasters* 
C. h, Bloominiton, Feb. 12, 1909 



Mr, Toastmaster and Gentlemen: 

During the years 1844 and 1845, my 
father, Mr. John W. Ewing, was the pro- 
prietor of the old National Hotel, on Front 
street, in the city of Bloomington. At that 
time circuit courts were held in McLean 
county, twice a year, and there were a num- 
ber of lawyers from other counties who 
usually attended these terms. Amongst 
those whom I specially remember as com- 
ing from Springfield, and who were guests 
at my father's house, were Hon. James 
McDougal, afterward a Senator from Cali- 
fornia; Mr. John T. Stuart, and Abraham 
Lincoln. I thus became acquainted with 

45 



LINCOLN — By MEN 

Mr. Lincoln, and I continued to know him, 
as a boy knows a distinguished man whom 
he often meets, until I860, when he was 
elected President of the United States. 

Mr. Lincoln was fond of children. At 
least he knew many of the boys and girls 
of the village, the children of his older 
friends, and often talked to them and ex- 
pressed an interest in their welfare. They 
liked Mr. Lincoln, and most of the boys in 
the town knew him and many of them talked 
to him, as we all thought, on most intimate 
terms. 

In 1844, Mr. Lincoln was thirty-live 
years of age, in the very prime of his 
younger manhood, and during the follow- 
ing fifteen years (except one term of service 
in Congress) he "traveled the circuit,'* de- 
voting most of his time to the practice of the 
law. When I first knew anything of courts, 

46 



WHO KNEW HIM 

Hon. Samuel H. Treat was the presiding 
judge of this circuit. He was afterward 
appointed to the Federal bench, and the 
Hon. David Davis became his successor and 
continued as the circuit judge until appointed 
by Mr. Lincoln as an associate justice of the 
Supreme Court of the United States. It 
was then the habit for such lawyers as pos- 
sessed sufficient experience and ability to at- 
tract a clientage to follow the court around 
the circuit. Mr. Lincoln was of this num- 
ber and more than perhaps any other was 
most constant and unremitting in his attend- 
ance. 

During these fifteen years, with the eager 
curiosity of a boy, I was a frequent attendant 
in the court room, and heard Mr. Lincoln 
try a great many law suits. The suits them- 
selves often dealt with trivial matters, but 
great men were engaged in them. Mr. Lin- 

47 



LINCOLN — By MEN 

coin was engaged in most of the suits of 
any importance. He was wonderfully suc- 
cessful. He v/as a master in all that went 
to make up what was called a "jury law- 
yer.*' His wonderful pov/er of clear and 
logical statement seemed the beginning and 
the end of the case. After his statement of 
the law and the facts in any particular case, 
we wondered either how the plaintiff came 
to bring such a suit or how the defendant 
could be such a fool as to defend it. By 
the time the jury was selected, each mem- 
ber of it felt that the great lawyer was his 
friend and was relying upon him as a juror 
to see that no injustice was done. Mr. Lin- 
coln's ready, homely, but always pertinent, 
illustrations and anecdotes could not be re- 
sisted. Few men ever lived who knew, as 
he did, the mainsprings of action, secret mo- 
tive, the passions, prejudices and inclina- 

48 



WHO K N EW HIM 

tions which inspired the actions of men, and 
he played on the human heart as a master 
on an instrument. 

This power over a jury was, however, the 
least of his claims to be entitled a good law- 
yer. He was masterful in a legal argument 
before the court. His knowledge of the 
general principles of the law was extensive 
and accurate, and his mind was so clear and 
logical that he seldom made a mistake in 
their application. Courteous to the court, 
fair to his opponent, and modest and re- 
strained in his assertions, he was certainly 
the model lawyer. 

As for myself, I decided I would be a 
lawyer, and that I would be just such a law- 
yer as Mr. Lincoln was. Well, as a matter 
of fact, I didn't become just such a lawyer. 
My failure in that regard, to my friends, 
was a regret rather than a surprise. I was 

49 



LINCOLN — By MEN 

like a rather frothy young friend of mine, 
who had been to hear Bishop Spaulding 
preach, and, inspired by the eloquence of 
the great preacher, imparted to me in con- 
fidence that "if he had his hfe to hve over, 
he would be a bishop." 

While my great ambition fell so far short 
of realization, yet of one thing I am sure — 
success was very much nearer by reason of 
the high ideals I imbibed from Lincoln. I 
believe that every young lawyer then at the 
Bloomington bar became a better lawyer 
on account of Mr. Lincoln's example. 

I heard Mr. Lincoln make a number of 
political speeches. I heard his speech in the 
old court house in 1 854, on the Kansas and 
Nebraska bill, in answer to the speech of 
Mr. Douglas on the same subject, made a 
few days before. In this speech, what im- 
pressed me most was that same wonderful 

50 



WHO KNEW HIM 

power of statement to which I have before 
referred. I can never forget the manner in 
which he stated the causes and events which 
led up to the enactment of the Missouri Com- 
promise; just what that compromise was, 
and how it affected the question of slavery; 
the history of the events and causes which 
led to the passage of the compromise of 
1 850 ; its constitutional elements ; just what 
the South got and just what the North got 
by it, and how it was affected by the repeal 
of the other compromise bill. It seems to 
me I could almost repeat those statements 
to-day, after a half century, so vivid was the 
impression. 

I heard his speech in the Major Hall 
Convention in May, 1856, spoken of some- 
times as the "Lost Speech.** But this 
speech did not impress me as the one of 
two years before — possibly because it was 

51 



LINCOLN — By MEN 

only one of several great speeches by other 
great orators — Owen Lovejoy, O. H. 
Browning, John M. Palmer, Archibald 
Williams, T. Lyle Dickey, Norton, Grid- 
ley, Farnsworth and others, who all took an 
active part in that historic convention. 

In 1854, Judge Stephen A. Douglas 
came to Bloomington to make a speech de- 
fending the principles of the Kansas and 
Nebraska bill. Judge Lawrence Weldon, 
who was then a young lawyer at Clinton, 
and who had come up to hear the speech, 
went with Mr. Stevenson and myself to call 
upon and pay our respects to the "Little 
Giant." We were presented to Judge 
Douglas by Mr. Amzi McWilliams, then 
a prominent Democratic lawyer of this city. 
After we had been in Mr. Douglas' room 
a few minutes, Mr. Lincoln came in, and 
the Senator and he greeted each other 

52 



WHO K N E W HIM 

most cordially as old friends, and then 
Mr. Douglas introduced Mr. Lincoln to 
Judge Weldon. He said: "Mr. Lincoln, 
I want to introduce you to Mr. Wel- 
don, a young lawyer who has come to 
Illinois from Ohio, and has located at Clin- 
ton.*' Mr. Lincoln said: "Well, I am glad 
of that; I go to Clinton sometimes my- 
self, and we will get acquainted.'* This 
was the beginning of an acquaintance which 
ripened into a strong friendship and which, 
founded on mutual admiration and respect, 
grew and strengthened as the years passed, 
and ended only in death. They met again 
at Clinton; a sort of local partnership was 
formed; they tried law suits and rode the 
circuit together. Judge Weldon was the 
active promoter of Mr. Lincoln's political 
interests, and was an elector in the campaign 
of I860. I doubt if any man living knew 

S3 



LINCOLN — By MEN 

Mr. Lincoln better, or had in a greater de- 
gree his confidence, than our distinguished 
friend and citizen. Judge Lawrence Weldon. 
In view of the recent controversy as to 
Mr. Lincoln's temperance principles, as to 
whether he was a ** wine-bibber" or the 
"president of a temperance society,'* the fol- 
lowing may be of interest: At this same 
meeting I heard Mr. Lincoln define his posi- 
tion on the liquor question. This is authen- 
tic, as coming from Mr. Lincoln himself, 
and ought to settle this question forever. 
But it won't. The controversy will go on, 
like the brook, "forever," until each side 
convinces itself. This meeting I am speak- 
ing of, being a Democratic meeting, the com- 
mittee had placed on the sideboard of Judge 
Douglas' room (probably without his knowl- 
edge) a pitcher of water, some glasses and 
a decanter of red liquor. As visitors called 

54 



WHO KNEW HIM 

they were invited to partake; most of the 
Democrats decKned. When Mr. Lincoln 
rose to go, Mr. Douglas said, "Mr. Lin- 
coln, won't you take something?" Mr. Lin- 
coln said, **No, I think not." Mr. Douglas 
said, "What! are you a mem.ber of the 
Temperance Society?" **No," said Mr. 
Lincoln, **I am not a member of any tem- 
perance society ; but I am temperate, in this^ 
that I don't drink anything." 

At the same meeting, another incident oc- 
curred which I wish to relate. One of the 
visitors who came to call on Senator Doug- 
las was the Hon. Jesse W. Fell. He was 
an old friend, and had known Douglas when 
he first came to the State. I remember very 
well their cordial meeting and recall clearly 
a part of their conversation. After talking 
a while of old times and mutual friends, Mr. 
Fell said, "Judge Douglas, many of Mr. 

55 



LINCOLN — By MEN 

Lincoln's friends would be greatly pleased 
to hear a joint discussion between you and 
him on these new and important questions 
now interesting the people, and I will be 
glad if such a discussion can be arranged.** 
Mr. Douglas seemed annoyed, and, after 
hesitating a moment, said: **No; I won*t 
do it! I come to Chicago, and there I am 
met by an old line abolitionist ; I come down 
to the center of the State, and I am met by 
an old line Whig; I go to the south end of 
the State, and I am met by an anti-adminis- 
tration Democrat. I can*t hold the aboli- 
tionist responsible for what the Whig says; 
I can't hold the Whig responsible for what 
the abolitionist says, and I can*t hold either 
responsible for what the Democrat says. It 
looks like dogging a man over the State. 
This is my meeting; the people have come 
to hear me, and I want to talk to them.** 

56 



WHO KNEW HIM 

Mr. Fell said: "Well, Judge, you may be 
right; perhaps some other time it can be 
arranged." 

I have told this incident for a purpose. 
Mr. Fell never gave up this idea of a joint 
discussion. He was the first man to sug- 
gest it. From 1 854 to 1 858 he continued to 
urge it, and to Mr. Jesse W. Fell, more than 
to any other man, is due the credit of bring- 
ing about those great debates, the full influ- 
ence of which, upon Mr. Lincoln's fortunes, 
the events of history and the fate of the 
nation, no man is wise enough to know. Mr. 
Fell was the intimate, devoted, and Xpfse 
friend of Mr. Lincoln. I speak with some 
knowledge and with perfect sincerity when 
I say that, with the possible exception of the 
Hon. David Davis, Mr. Fell did more than 
any other man, living or dead, to secure the 
nomination of Mr. Lincoln to the presidency. 

57 



LINCOLN — By MEN 

Mr. Fell was one of our citizens. He 
was Bloomington*s first lawyer. His life 
was a benefaction to this community. I am 
pleased to take advantage of this opportu- 
nity to connect his name with the name of 
the man he helped, and to pay a modest 
tribute to one of the best men that ever lived. 

In the fall of I860, I met Mr. Lincoln 
on the sidewalk in front of the old court 
house. He had come from Springfield to 
arrange some old suits, in view of his de- 
parture for Washington. He shook hands 
with me, and said: **Well, you have gotten 
to be a lav/yer. Let me give you some ad- 
vice: Don't meddle with politics; stick to 
the law." I replied: "Mr. President, I 
fear your example may prove more alluring 
than your advice." No! no!" said he; 
"that was an accident." He passed into 
the court house, and that was the last time 

I ever saw him. 

58 



WHO KNEW HIM 

Personal reminiscences must be confined 
to a time prior to I860. The four years 
following belong to the history of the world. 

This is the time of the making of many 
books, the writing of many histories, biog- 
raphies, short and long sketches in maga- 
zines and newspapers, critiques and tributes, 
memoirs, stories, anecdotes and lies about 
Mr. Lincoln. There are books by His Pri- 
vate Secretary, by the "Man Who Knew 
Lincoln,'* by lots of men and women who 
didn't know him, by a member of the New 
York Bar, by members of other bars, by 
editors, schoolmasters and preachers, by 
"butlers, bakers and candlestick-makers," by 
"old neighbors" and by "old clients" — all 
about "Lincoln as a Boy," "Lincoln the 
Man," "Lincoln the Soldier," "Lincoln the 
Lawyer," "Lincoln the Story-Teller," "Lin- 
coln the Lover," "Lincoln the Dreamer," 

59 



LINCOLN — By MEN 

"Lincoln the Farmer,'* the "Wood Chop- 
per*' and the "Foot Racer.** There will be 
delivered this 12th day of February, 1909, 
more than fifty thousand speeches, addresses, 
orations and memorials which will help to 
swell this Lincolnian literary melange to the 
proportions of an Alexandrian library. 

It would be strange indeed, in view of the 
many authors, the variety of publications and 
the character of the subject, if there should 
not be found an immense amount of mis- 
representation, false history, inaccurate esti- 
mates, false narrative, tiresome repetitions, 
sentimental bathos, and silly white lies. Old 
Doctor Johnson, when Boswell told him he 
"intended to write his life,** said, "If I be- 
lieved you, I would take yours." If Mr. 
Lincoln had been told what some of his 
friends intended to do, he would have said 
with David, "Oh, that mine enemy would 
write a book!" 

60 



WHO KNEW HIM 

The trouble is that men who never saw 
Mr. Lincoln, and who have no adequate 
conception of his life and character, have 
gotten up old stories, incidents, traditions, 
second-hand anecdotes, and rushed into print 
to make history. Others even manufacture 
goody-goody lies to increase his reputation. 
Others write of him as a slouch, a buffoon, 
an uneducated gawk, to increase the wonder 
of his career. Others tell of artful prac- 
tices and doubtful tricks, to demonstrate his 
shrewdness. Others recite sentimental and 
impossible rescues and charities, which put 
old Santa Claus to shame. One old citizen 
tells of a wonderful conversation he had with 
Mr. Lincoln at the time of the Douglas and 
Lincoln debate at Bloomington — a debate 
which never took place. A reverend gentle- 
man tells how an actor friend of his was in- 
vited by Mr. Lincoln to "stay all night'* 

61 



LINCOLN — By MEN 

with him at the White House during the 
war; how they talked till midnight, and 
how Mr. Lincoln told him all the secrets of 
the war; how, when they had retired, the 
actor heard some one apparently in great 
distress ; how he got up and wandered about 
the halls until he found Mr. Lincoln's pri- 
vate bedroom, and, looking through the key- 
hole, saw Mr. Lincoln on his knees, agoniz- 
ing in prayer, etc. I suppose this preacher 
believed that proving Mr. Lincoln a saint 
justified him in proving his friend a liar and 
a sneak. 

Another one of these stories is how Mr. 
Lincoln manufactured an almanac and intro- 
duced it in evidence to confound a witness 
who had sworn a certain night was moon- 
light, when the manufactured almanac 
showed it was the dark of the moon, 
thus saving his client's life. This story is 

62 



WHO KNEW HIM 

repeated in Mr. Churchiirs book, **The 
Crisis," and even in school books. No one 
who knew Mr. Lincoln can think of him as 
deliberately perpetrating a forgery upon the 
court, and practicing a trick of which only 
a pettifogger could conceive — a silly trick, 
too, which would certainly have been in- 
stantly exposed. 

Another friend of Mr. Lincoln tells how 
he accompanied him to Washington from 
Springfield in 1 860, and how the President 
"kept the entire company in constant roars of 
laughter'* by telling questionable stories and 
jokes. It is probable this fellow was not 
on the train at all. I think there have been 
more lies told about Mr. Lincoln than about 
Santa Claus. A curious thing is that they 
are not usually malicious, but mostly told by 
mistaken friends and for good purposes. 
They are white lies, but I fear, unlike that 

63 



LINCOLN — By MEN 

of Uncle Toby and the loving lie of Desde- 
mona, they will never be blotted out by the 
tears of the recording angel. 

You and I can do little to stem this lit- 
erary flood, but we can thank God that the 
subject of it is safe in the Pantheon, beyond 
the domain of human praise, blame or — 
stupidity. 

Mr. Lincoln dressed as well as the aver- 
age Western lawyer of his day. I do not 
think he gave much time to the tying of his 
necktie, and he could not have been said by 
his best friends to be much of a dude, but 
he was always respectably clothed. Mr. 
Lincoln was not a story-teller in the sense 
of "swapping stories," or telling a story for 
the sake of the story itself. He was pos- 
sessed of great humor, and a wonderfully 
acute sense of the ridiculous. He had that 
marvelous "gift of the gods" which we some- 

64 



WHO KNEW HIM 

times call the "sixth sense." Unexpected 
situations, curious expressions, odd sayings, 
unusual appearances and humorous actions 
made an impression on him. He remem- 
bered these and often used them as illustra- 
tions. He seldom, if ever, told a story ex- 
cept to illustrate a point in his speech or argu- 
ment, and in this kind of illustration no man 
v/as more apt. A few minutes after the 
voting in the legislature, in 1 858, when Mr. 
Douglas was elected Senator, Mr. Lincoln 
was asked by a friend, "How do you feel?" 
Said he, "I feel like the boy who stumped 
his toe: I am too big to cry and too badly 
hurt to laugh." 

Hon. Ezra M. Prince, a Bloomington 
lawyer, who knew Lincoln very well, told 
the following story : After the adjournment 
of the Major Hall convention, the Repub- 
lican editors of Illinois met in convention at 

65 



LINCOLN — By MEN 

Bloomington. Mr. Lincoln attended and 
was invited to address the meeting. He said 
he was afraid he was out of his place. He 
was not an editor, and had no business there ; 
in fact, he was an interloper. He said: **I 
feel hke I once did when I met a woman 
riding horseback in the woods. As I 
stopped to let her pass, she also stopped, and, 
looking at me intently, said, *I do believe 
you are the ugliest man I ever saw.' Said I, 
*Madam, you probably are right, but I 
can't help it!' *No,' said she, *you can't 
help it, but you might stay at home!' " 

Hon. John B. Henderson, who was a 
Senator from Missouri during the war, told 
the following story, as showing how Mr. 
Lincoln could illustrate a situation by an in- 
cident: He said he was at the White 
House, talking with Mr. Lincoln. It was 
at a time when great pressure was being 

66 



WHO KNEW HIM 

brought upon the President by certain rad- 
ical members to induce him to issue an Eman- 
cipation Proclamation. Mr. Lincoln had 
been telling Mr. Henderson about his 
troubles in that regard. He did not think 
the time was ripe, and was very much an- 
noyed at the persistence of three men whom 
he named — Senators Wade and Sumner, 
and Thaddeus Stevens, of Pennsylvania. All 
at once Mr. Lincoln said, "Henderson, did 
you ever attend an old field school?" 
**Yes," said the Senator. "Well," said Mr. 
Lincoln, "I did, and a funny thing occurred 
one day. You know, we had no reading 
books, and we read out of the Bible. The 
class would stand up in a row, the teacher 
in front of them, and read verses, turn about. 
This day we were reading about the He- 
brew children. As none of us were very 
good readers, we were in the habit of count- 

67 



LINCOLN — By MEN 

ing ahead and each one practicing on his 
particular verse. Standing next to me was 
a red-headed, freckled-faced boy, who was 
the poorest reader in the class. It so fell 
out that the names of the Hebrew children 
appeared in his verse. He managed to 
work through Shadrach, fell down at Me- 
shach, and went all to pieces at Abednego, 
The reading went on, and in due course of 
time came round again, but when the turn 
came near enough for the boy to see his 
verse, he pointed to it in great consternation, 
and whispered to me, *Look! there come 

them three d d fellers again.' And 

there," said Mr. Lincoln, pointing out of 
the window, "come those three same fel- 
lows." And sure enough, there were Wade, 
Stevens and Sumner, coming up the walk. 
Mr. Henderson added : "As I arose to take 
my departure, the other gentlemen entered, 

68 



WHO KNEW HIM 

and there was a smile on Mr. Lincoln's face, 
as if his thoughts had flown away over all 
the years, from war and trouble, to the old 
field school in the forest of Indiana." 

No one called Mr. Lincoln "Abe." Judge 
Davis, General Gridley, Mr. Isaac Funk, 
Mr. Fell, Leonard Swett, General William 
Ward Orme, Lawrence Weldon, William 
McCullough, Judge Treat, John T. Stuart, 
Owen T. Reeves, Reuben M. Benjamin, 
and William H. Hanna — all of them Lin- 
coln's early friends and associates, and all 
of them elegant and dignified gentlemen — 
invariably addressed him as "Mr. Lincoln." 
It was always Mr. Clay, Mr. Webster, Mr. 
Lincoln. 

It is a mistake to think of Mr. Lincoln as 
an ordinary man, even from the first. In 
1844 he was a lawyer of state reputation; 
nine years before he was in the legislature, 

69 



LINCOLN — By MEN 

where he met such men as Douglas, McCIer- 
nand, Browning, Ebenezer Peck, Robert 
Blackwell, Joseph Gillespie and Judge Pur- 
ple. These were great men, and he was 
never dwarfed in their presence. I have 
spoken of the men with whom he associated 
and acted in our city. He was always easily 
the leader; he was the talker; everybody 
deferred to Mr. Lincoln; he had the center 
of the stage by common consent. He knew 
more of the matter in hand. He thought 
more; he was a better talker, and was a 
natural leader. 

When elected to the presidency, Lincoln 
did not select for his adviser, his private sec- 
retary and other unknown men, but William 
H. Seward, Edward Bates, Salmon P. 
Chase — all of whom had been prominent 
candidates in the Republican party for the 
presidential nomination, and to these were 

70 



WHO KNEW HIM 

added other distinguished and leading men 
who constituted his Cabinet. He did not 
fear he would be overshadowed, and he 
never was. From the first he was the equal 
of any of them, and in Washington, as in 
Bloomington, he was the "Leader of Men." 
It is a mistake to think of Mr. Lincoln as 
an uneducated man. The "kindergarten" 
and "primary" courses were taken in a Ken- 
tucky cabin, with his mother as "principal." 
Possibly he never learned at his school to 
make maps, but he did learn "manners and 
morals." At the age of nine he entered 
the academy to prepare for college. This 
"school of learning" was located in a "clear- 
ing" on his father's farm, a "little house in 
the woods" in the State of Indiana. Here 
his attention was first directed to "physical 
culture." This study he was not permitted 
to neglect. The "gymnasium" was well fur- 

71 



LINCOLN — By MEN 

nished with "apparatus" — axes, wedges, 
mauls, log-chains, cross-bars, swinging sap- 
lings, etc. Then came "nature study out 
on the campus." He found spring beauties 
and sweet williams, May-apples and purple 
grapes, and, out beyond, the prairie grasses 
and the wild rose. From these, from tree, 
shrub and plant, from form, color and per- 
fume, came that sense of beauty embodied 
in those exquisite prose poems which we so 
much love to read. This branch of study 
included zoology. He learned the names 
of animals, their nature, habits, instincts, his- 
tory and language. He knew when the 
birds mated and how they built their homes, 
and he learned well the lesson best worth 
learning from this science — to be kind and 
gentle to all animal nature. 

He had lessons in political economy — the 
value of money; supply and demand; the 

72 



WHO KNEW HIM 

virtue of economy; the proper sources of 
wealth; the lessons of necessity, and the 
value of labor. He closed his academic 
course at the age of twenty-one, with the 
honors of his class, and entered the univer- 
sity. He studied mathematics, became a 
surveyor and nayal architect. He became 
a great linguist, and his success was all the 
greater in that he confined himself to one 
language. He devoted himself so diligently 
to the study of history that he learned how 
to make history. 

He read and re-read Shakespeare, Burns 
and Byron. He studied some of the best 
English classics, and that wonderful volume 
of Hebrew literature, the Bible. The result 
of these "language studies" is the purest 
English ever written. 

Rhetoric and logic came easy. He was 
a philosopher by nature. "Civil govern- 

73 



LINCOLN — By MEN 

ment'* he learned under Jefferson, Madison 
and Hamilton. He took a post-graduate 
course in law under Professors Blackstone 
and Chitty, and from this department, as 
from the university and the academy, he car- 
ried away all honors, and was the valedic- 
torian of his class. And yet there are pseudo 
historians and pretentious litterati who speak 
of Lincoln as illiterate and uneducated. I 
say, he was the best educated man in his 
day, if the best education means the best 
equipment for the duties of life. 

There are a great many good Americans 
who are not exactly satisfied with Mr. Lin- 
coln's ancestry. They can stand his pov- 
erty all right — that could be remedied — but 
a great man ought to have not only a father 
and a mother, but several grandfathers. In 
that marvelous transition from poverty to 
affluence, from a cabin to the White House, 

74 



WHO KNEW HIM 

from obscurity to fame, the aching void is 
the want of ancestry. Mr. Lincoln, in his 
biography, gives the following account of his 
family : 

**I was born February 1 2, 1 809, in Har- 
din county, Kentucky. My parents were 
both from Virginia, of undistinguished fami- 
lies — second families, perhaps I should say. 
My mother, who died in my tenth year, was 
of a family of the name of Hanks, some of 
whom now reside in Adams county, and 
others in Macon county, Illinois. My pater- 
nal grandfather, Abraham Lincoln, emi- 
grated from Rockington county, Virginia, to 
Kentucky, about 1781 or 1782, where, a 
year or two later, he was killed by Indians, 
not in battle, but by stealth, when he was 
laboring to open a farm in the forest. His 
ancestors, who were Quakers, went to Vir- 
ginia from Berks county, Pennsylvania. An 

75 



LINCOLN — By MEN 

effort to identify them with the New Eng- 
land family of the same name ended in 
nothing more definite than a similarity of 
Christian names in both families." 

But this modest account, splendid in its 
simplicity, is by no means satisfying to the 
inquirer after a nobler lineage. Since we 
have known anything of the history of the 
human race, there has been traceable a dis- 
position to make of the hero a demigod. 
Achilles, the son of Pelius, was also the 
son of Thetis. Alexander, after he had 
conquered the world, was the son of Her- 
cules. Julius Caesar became a descendant 
of Aeneas, who had a goddess for his 
mother. Moses no longer has a Hebrew 
mother, but is the son of the Pharaohs. This 
is only the symbolism of that disposition of 
human nature to account for great men and 
great achievements by greatness of birth. 

76 



WHO KNEW HIM 

But there is hope! I bring you good 
news! Mr. Lincoln's ancestors have been 
discovered! Two "distinguished genealo- 
gists," one an American and one an Eng- 
hshman, have for years been collaborating to 
trace the ancestry of the great President to 
his English forebears, through colleges of 
heraldry and the records of the courts of 
chancery, for many generations. They 
have made many wonderful discoveries. 
The result of these genealogical labors is 
a book (I quote from the publishers) 
"which is a fine example of sound genealog- 
ical research, and is now offered at this 
centenary of Lincoln's birth," to a waiting 
public; "with elaborate tables, copious ap- 
pendices, richly illustrated, and including "a 
defense of Thomas Lincoln, in one octavo 
volume, at ten dollars net"! Mr. Lincoln 
had written it all in twelve lines. These 

77 



LINCOLN — By MEN 

"distinguished genealogists require a quarto 
volume." Which do you like the better? 
Seriously, is it not strange, and is it not de- 
plorable, that an intelligent American could 
believe that Saxon or Norman lineage could 
add anything to the fame of a man whose 
presence already fills the world? If his 
birth was lowly, his deeds are royal in that 
land which men call fame. 

We are all hero-worshipers, and often, 
when our heroes are above the clouds, we 
build unto ourselves graven images. Some- 
times their crowns are only tinsel, and 
are easily tarnished; sometimes their halos 
are only of paper and are very fragile. Men 
will differ as to the chief foundation of Mr. 
Lincoln's fame, but there will be no differ- 
ence as to its being real and lasting. Some 
day, the true historian will appear. Some 
day, out of all this rubbish and jumble of 

78 



WHO KNEW HIM 

inconsistencies, the true history will be writ- 
ten. Some day, when the rugged propor- 
tions of this great historic figure, by time 
and distance have been rounded into form, 
the real man will be known. Then, I think, 
we will come to realize that, in the history 
of a great man, chance is not so much a 
factor as Providence. Then we will under- 
stand better and appreciate more, how price- 
less was our heritage, and that, although 
given to the ages, "it was not taken from us.'* 



79 



Address of 
Michard Price Morgan 




RICHARD PRICE MORGAN 



COL. RICHARD PRICE MORGAN 

Richard Price Morgan was born at Stockbridge, 
Massachusetts, on September 17, 1828, and died 
at Dwight, Illinois, May 20, 1910, which was after 
the address published in this book was delivered. 
In 1852, he came to Illinois in charge of the location 
and construction of what is now the Chicago & 
Alton Railroad, with his head-quarters at Bloom- 
ington. Upon the completion of that road he 
became its general superintendent, in which capac- 
ity he served until 1857. He founded the city 
of Dwight, Illinois, and lived there with some 
interruptions until his death. In his later life 
he was connected with many very important 
engineering projects, and became a great authority 
in all engineering matters, serving at one time as 
chief engineer of the United States Pacific Railway 
Commission. In 1896 he was appointed by Pres- 
ident Cleveland a member of the board of engineers 
to select a location and prepare plans and estimates 
for a deep water harbor on the southern coast of 
California. Later in life, the degree of Doctor 

83 



of Engineering was conferred upon him by the 
University of Illinois. 

In 1860, when King Edward, then the Prince 
of Wales, visited the United States, Mr. Morgan 
entertained him, at Dwight, during his stay in 
that town on a hunt. Mr. Morgan was a large 
minded and public spirited man, and in his death, 
the State lost a most useful citizen. Of faultless 
dress and lofty and dignified bearing, "Col. Morgan" 
as he was called, was a typical gentleman of the 
old school. 



84 



Address of 
Richard Price Morgan 

at Pontiac, Illinois, February 12, 1909, 
on * 'Lincoln at the Decatur Convention" 



Mr. President and FelloTP Citizens of Liv- 
ingston County: 

We have assembled to celebrate the com- 
ing of Abraham Lincoln, the mightiest hu- 
man power and inspiration for good ever 
given to mankind. This is an auspicious 
day for this country and for the oppressed 
of all nations. It is being most earnestly 
celebrated throughout the world wherever 
Christianity has lifted up the people. In 
joining with you to celebrate this great 
period in the march of time, and in the his- 
tory of our country, it is my duty to you 
as chairman of your delegation to the Re- 

85 



LINCOLN — By MEN 

publican State Convention at Decatur, Illi- 
nois, on the ninth and tenth of May, 1860, 
to give an accurate account to you of my 
stewardship. 

Your delegation was selected at a county 
convention held in the old courthouse in 
Pontiac, early in May. The personnel of 
the delegation was: The late Hon. Jason 
W. Strevell, William Gagan, A. J. Crop- 
sey, deceased, and Richard Price Morgan. 
It is fitting for me to say in this connection 
that Mr. Strevell, of Pontiac, was the first 
delegate chosen in the County Convention, 
and by priority and also by his fine abilities 
he naturally became chairman; but, on 
account of my acquaintance with and friend- 
ship for Mr. Lincoln, Mr. Strevell urged 
and, by his own motion, caused me to act 
as chairman of the delegation. I may 
appropriately add that your delegation 

86 



WHO KNEW HIM 

worked in the convention in perfect harmony 
with the twelve delegates from McLean 
County, all of whom have passed away. 
Their enthusiasm for Lincoln was un- 
bounded, and they claimed that the flint 
was first struck by Lincoln at Bloomington, 
that started the patriotic fires which lighted 
his way for the presidency. 

My personal acquaintance with and 
friendship for Mr. Lincoln began in 1853, 
and continued until his death in 1 865. The 
instructions w^e received when we were 
appointed delegates were to vote as a unit 
for State officers, and especially we were 
charged to do all in our power to secure 
the passage of a resolution pledging the 
State of Illinois to the National Conven- 
tion, about to assemble in Chicago, its pa- 
triotism and integrity, as represented in the 
person of Abraham Lincoln, to secure his 

nomination for the presidency. 

87 



LINCOLN — By MEN 

Mr. Lincoln was personally present at the 
convention, and your delegates, as all others, 
had ample opportunity to meet and freely 
converse with him, upon the topics of the 
day. I shall not attempt to describe the 
intense patriotism which animated that most 
notable assembly. But to give you some 
idea of its spirit, I will repeat a short sen- 
tence from the speech of our War governor, 
Richard Yates, in acknowledging his nomi- 
nation. He said: "Let us hope that the 
South will not attempt to destroy this Union ; 
but, if it should, flaming giants will spring 
from every cornfield in the State of Illinois.'* 

After the State business was concluded, 
the following resolution was unanimously 
adopted with unbounded enthusiasm. Re- 
solved: "That Abraham Lincoln is the 
choice of the Republican party in Illinois for 
the presidency, and that the delegates from 

88 



WHO KNEW HIM 

this State are instructed to use all honor- 
able means to procure his nomination by the 
Chicago Convention, and that their vote be 
cast as a unit for him." 

Mr. Lincoln was then escorted into the 
wigwam and to the platform by a commit- 
tee selected by the chair. His appearance 
before the convention was the signal for 
another outburst of most hearty welcome. 
He received it without a smile, but the be- 
nignant expression of his eyes and face, and 
also his whole attitude, disclosed to every 
man in that multitude the affectionate grati- 
tude of his heart. 

The response of Mr. Lincoln to the reso- 
lution was in a few grateful words of thanks. 
At the close of his remarks, Livingston 
County first led off and gave the word — 
Three times Three for Abraham Lincoln, 
our next President. After these, nine cheers 

89 



LINCOLN — By MEN 

were given with a will, the word came again 
from another part of the convention — Three 
times Three for Honest Old Abe, our next 
President. This was followed by another 
and another. 

When quiet was partially restored, Mr. 
Lincoln came slowly down from the plat- 
form, shaking the hundreds of hands which 
were extended to him. At this juncture the 
rail committee, headed by Mr. Hanks, 
pressed through the crov/d with several rails, 
carried them to the platform, and standing 
them up stood by them. Without further 
word the crowd, into v/hich Lincoln had 
pressed his way some distance, commenced 
to shout "Identify your work." He was 
at once seized upon and carried in the arms 
and over the heads of the crowd to the 
platform again and placed beside the rails. 
Then the Convention, being again seated, 

90 



WHO KNEW HIM 

shouted, **Identify your work! Identify your 
work!" After a moment's hesitation, ad- 
dressing himself to the Convention, he said, 
quite solemnly, "I cannot say that I split 
these rails.*' Turning to Mr. Hanks and 
the committee, and looking at the rails, Mr. 
Lincoln asked: **Where did you get the 
rails?" Mr. Hanks replied: "At the 
farm you improved down on the Sanga- 
mon." "Well," said Lincoln, "that was a 
long time ago. However, it is possible I 
may have split these rails, but I cannot iden- 
tify them." Again the Convention shouted, 
"Identify your work! Identify your work!" 
At this time the care visible on Mr. Lincoln's 
face gave way to a pleasant smile and he 
again said, "What kind of timber are they?" 
The committee replied, "Honey locust and 
black walnut." "Well," said Lincoln, his 
smile increasing, "that is lasting timber, and 

91 



LINCOLN — By MEN 

it may be that I split the rails.'* Then he 
seemed to examine the rails critically, his 
smile all the time increasing, until his con- 
tagious merriment was visible, and he laugh- 
ingly said, "Well, boys, I can only say I 
have split a great many better looking ones." 

This tactful turn was met by a storm of 
approval, and three times three were then 
given, and three more for "Honest Abraham 
Lincoln, the rail candidate, our next Presi- 
dent." 

The Convention then adjourned sine die. 
In a moment there was a rush of delegates 
to the platform. The rails were seized upon 
and pieces of some of them were sawed off 
for souvenirs. I am happy to say that Liv- 
ingston County was again among the first 
to get two pieces, and that I have with me 
as a token of the rail episode of that con- 
vention parts of the pieces of rails brought 

92 



WHO KNEW HIM 

home to Livingston County, now in the form 
of a gavel. 

Nothing could have afforded more de- 
cisive proof that Lincoln did split the rails 
than his adroit presentation of the circum- 
stantial evidence. This was at once recog- 
nized by every delegate and was received 
with delightful satisfaction. The signifi- 
cance of this rail episode in respect to the 
character of Mr. Lincoln and his subsequent 
conduct of the affairs of our country through 
its most dreadful trial, will be manifest to 
all thoughtful persons. His honesty, sagacity 
and tact were the foundations upon which 
he stood immovable, when saving our coun- 
try, until the day of his death. 

I have for this reason considered it my 
duty in this respect especially to report to 
you and in the interest of accurate history 
state the facts which I have for so many 

93 



LINCOLN — By MEN 

years been possessed of in data and in an 
excellent memory. I feel so assured in what I 
have said that I do not believe it possible for 
any one to raise reasonable doubt of its gen- 
eral accuracy, nor shall I recede from any 
part of it without the indisputable proof of 
eye-witnesses like myself. 

Soon after the adjournment of the conven- 
tion, your delegation called on Mr. Lincoln 
to give him its best wishes and bid him good- 
bye for Livingston county. At that inter- 
view he said, in answer to a question as to 
his chances: "I reckon I'll get about a hun- 
dred votes at Chicago, and I have a notion 
that will be the high mark for me.'* This 
was the last duty of your delegation, and 
this report briefly represents the primary ac- 
tion of Livingston county in giving Abraham 
Lincoln to the world. 

I have been requested to refer to some 

94 



WHO KNEW HIM 

personal reminiscences of my relations with 
Mr. Lincoln. I had the good fortune to be- 
come acquainted with him in Bloomington in 
1853, when I was division engineer, build- 
ing the Chicago & Alton Railroad. Bloom- 
ington was then a village of 1 ,200 people, 
overcrowded with emigrants, land buyers, 
railway contractors and laborers. Being 
somewhat permanently located, I was fortu- 
nate enough to have a large room on the 
first floor of my boarding-house, to which 
circumstance I am indebted for my acquaint- 
ance with Mr. Lincoln. On a hot afternoon, 
I think in the autumn season, I was seated 
in my room with the door partly open to the 
main hall, when I overheard the following 
conversation: "Indeed, if you cannot ac- 
commodate me, I am sure I do not know 
what I shall do. I am here for this term 
of the Circuit Court, and have tried every- 

95 



LINCOLN — By MEN 

where to find accommodations, but so far 
have failed, and I see no probabiHty of suc- 
cess unless you can care for me." The land- 
lady, to whom the above was addressed, re- 
plied: "Mr. Lincoln, I would like very 
much to give you a room and board while 
you are in the city, but I have no room or 
bed to offer you; but if it will help you 
any to come here for your meals, I will do 
the best I can for you." "Well," said Mr. 
Lincoln, "you are very kind, but I have no- 
where to lay my head." 

Those being early days of western life, 
of which I had seen something, I stepped 
to the hall door and for the first time saw 
the tall man of destiny. After a moment, I 
said to the landlady: "Is this gentleman a 
friend of yours?" To which she replied, 
introducing him as "Mr. Lincoln, of Spring- 
field, a lawyer who is practicing in the court 

96 



WHO KNEW HIM 

of McLean county. He is a friend of mine, 
and I am very sorry indeed that I am unable 
to accommodate him." After looking at 
Mr. Lincoln a moment, and he at me, with a 
rather inquiring expression, I said: "If you 
will put a bed in my room, which is too 
large for one person in these crowded times, 
I would be pleased to have Mr. Lincoln 
room with me during his stay in the city." 
As I finished this remark, Lincoln threw 
back his head a little, and with it the long 
black hair that came over his forehead, and 
said: "Now, that is what I call clever."^ 

I thus became the roommate of the great- 
est man since Washington, the peer of any 
man in the love of liberty, justice and mercy ; 
and I wish to record here that during the 
time of this stay — several weeks — -I learned 
from him many things which have been of 
priceless value to me. 

*In common western parlance the word '"clever" was often used in 
the sense of kind or accommodating. 

97 

7— 



LINCOLN — By MEN 

Although his time was very much en- 
grossed by court proceedings, he seemed to 
strive, although I was twenty years his 
junior, to make his companionship interesting 
and serviceable to m.e. I was told by him 
of many things and stories of the earlier set- 
tlers in Illinois, and also he recited selections 
of poetry, one of them being the poem, "Oh, 
v/hy should the spirit of mortal be proud?'* 
of which he was very fond. 

One evening he said: "The people of 
McLean county, before they became inter- 
ested in railway construction, and when 
Pekin, on the Illinois River, was their mar- 
ket, had very little to occupy their time, espe- 
cially at some seasons of the year. They 
would come to Bloomington on Saturdays 
with all sorts of vehicles — wagons, carts, and 
on horseback — and put in most of the day 
in fun, horse racing, settling old feuds, etc. 



WHO KNEW HIM 

When evening came and they were about to 
separate and return to their homes, almost 
every man, besides being well filled before 
starting, carried with him a good-sized brown 
jug in the front end of his wagon or cart." 

Speaking of the relative merits of New 
England rum and corn juice, as he called it, 
to illuminate the human mind, he told me 
this story of John Moore, who resided south 
of Blooming Grove, and subsequently be- 
came State Treasurer ; Mr. Moore came to 
Bloomington one Saturday in a cart drawn 
by a fine pair of young red steers. For some 
reason he was a little late starting home, and 
besides his brown jug, he otherwise had a 
good load on. In passing through the grove 
that night, one wheel of his cart struck a 
stump or root and threw the pole out of the 
ring of the yoke. The steers, finding them- 
selves free, ran away, and left John Moore 

99 



LINCOLN — By MEN 

sound asleep in his cart, where he remained 
all night. Early in the morning he roused 
himself, and looking over the side of the 
cart and around in the woods, he said: "If 
my name is John Moore, I've lost a pair of 
steers; if my name ain't John Moore, I've 
found a cart." After a good laugh together, 
Lincoln said : "Morgan, if you ever tell this 
story, you must add that Moore told it on 
himself." 

On the adjournment of the Circuit Court, 
Mr. Lincoln returned to Springfield, after 
which I only met him incidentally when visit- 
ing Springfield, until the following autumn, 
when I became superintendent of the Chi- 
cago & Alton Railway, soon after which I 
engaged the services of Mr. Lincoln as attor- 
ney and counselor for the company, and 
thereafter had frequent business intercourse 
with him. 

100 



WHO KNEW HIM 

It is not necessary for me to speak of his 
then acknowledged abiHty at the bar, but to 
illustrate his touch of humor and knowledge 
of human nature, which was ever present 
with him, I quote a letter which I received 
from him, inclosing an expired annual pass 
for 1855, and requesting its renewal, which 
was due him as counsel for the company : 

"Springfield, Feb. 13, 1856. — R. P. 
Morgan, Esq. : Says Tom to John, *Here's 
your old rotten wheelbarrow. I've broke it 
usin' on it. I wish you would mend it, *case 
I shall want to borrow it this arternoon.' 
Acting on this as a precedent, I say, *Here's 
your old 'chalked hat.* I wish you would 
take it and send me a new one, 'case I shall 
want to use it by the 1st of March.' Yours 
truly, A. Lincoln." 

I have always understood that this letter 
was written to me more as an acquaintance 
and friend than in my official capacity. The 
expression "chalked hat" was at that era, in 

101 



LINCOLN — By MEN 

railroading, at least, quite generally used in 
connection with persons who were fortunate 
enough to possess annual passes, and when 
they were called upon by the conductors, the 
holders would say, "I have a chalked hat," 
or, in brief, "I chalk." 

It was in the summer of the year that I 
received this letter — 1 856 — that I stood 
next to Mr. Lincoln and heard him say: 
**You can fool some of the people all of the 
time, and all of the people some of the time, 
but you can't fool all of the people all of 
the time." He was addressing an assem- 
blage of about three or four hundred people 
from the raised platform of the entrance to 
the Pike House, in Bloomington, 111., upon 
the subject of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, 
and reviewing the arguments of Douglas in 
support of it. His application of his epi- 
gram was so apt and so forcible that I have 

102 



WHO KNEW HIM 

never forgotten it, and I believe that no 
verbal modification of it would be accurate. 
In his final peroration of that address, refer- 
ring again to the arguments favoring the 
Kansas-Nebraska Act, he said, with wonder- 
ful energy and earnestness: "Surely, surely, 
my friends, you cannot be deceived by such 
sophistries." 

The occurrences of which I have spoken 
were all anterior to the war to preserve the 
Union. Among some treasures I have is an 
autograph letter, written in 1863, in which 
Mr. Lincoln declares himself to be my per- 
sonal acquaintance and friend. 

I consider it my duty to mention one fact 
that may otherwise be lost in the history of 
our county, as seemingly there is no record 
of it. Upon the call of President Lincoln 
for 75,000 volunteers, "Flaming Giants** 
did spring from the cornfields of Livingston 

103 



LINCOLN — By MEN 

county. On the 1 6th of April, the morning 
after the call, at 5 o'clock, I had the honor 
of standing at the door of the Adjutant Gen- 
eral's office in the old State House at Spring- 
field, holding in my hand a muster roll of 
eighty volunteers from Livingston county. It 
was recorded as No. 13, twelve others only 
standing ahead of me in the line, and before 
the office opened there were as many behind 
me, holding up their muster rolls. These 
volunteers from Livingston county were not 
mustered in as a company, because there 
were more volunteers in the State at large 
than its quota under that call. Most of these 
men immediately sought service in Regiments 
Seven to Twelve, inclusive, which consti- 
tuted the First Brigade of Illinois Volunteers, 
organized from April 25 to May 10, 1861. 



104 



Recollections of 
Judge Franklin Blades 




JUDGE FRANKLIN BLADES 



JUDGE FRANKLIN BLADES 

Judge Franklin Blades was born November 29. 
1830, in Rush County, Indiana. He was the son 
of a country physician, but lost his father at the 
age of sixteen. In his youth, there were few schools 
in Indiana, and none free. He therefore got in 
youth only such education as he could pick up at 
home and under private tutors. He was, however, 
fortunate enough to acquire in his youth a love 
for good books, and in time he became a man of 
cultivated mind through the study of such authors 
as Irving, Goldsmith, Johnson, Shakespeare, Ad- 
dison and others. In 1852 he graduated from the 
Rush Medical College of Chicago, and subse- 
quently took post-graduate courses in medicine 
in the University of Pennsylvania and in Jefferson 
Medical College at Philadelphia. He early settled 
down to his life work at Watseka, Illinois. He 
was the editor of a republican newspaper, support- 
ing Fremont for the presidency in 1856. In the 
latter year he was also elected to the Illinois Legis- 
lature. Again, in 1860, he was elected and 
served in the legislature. 
107 



In 1858, having studied law in the meantime, 
he was admitted to the Illinois bar. Subsequently, 
in 1862, he reverted to his original profession of 
medicine long enough to serve as surgeon of the 
76th Illinois Infantry. In 1864 he was a Repub- 
lican presidential elector for Illinois, and had the 
satisfaction of voting for his friend, Abraham 
Lincoln, for his second term. In 1877 Blades was 
elected to the circuit bench for a short term, and 
in June, 1879, he was re-elected for a full term of 
six years. In January, 1888, because of ill health, 
he removed to California, and is now living and 
raising oranges at Pomona in that State. A short 
biography of himself which the Judge prepared 
for the publishers of this book, closes with these 
modest words: 

"And now as I near the close of my long life 
I recall with affection, and almost tearful 
gratitude, the memory of the many friends whose 
kindly offices did so much to promote such success 
as I have had, and which I think quite equal to 
my merits." 



108 



Recollections of 
Jud^e Franklin Blades 



I had some personal acquaintance with 
Mr. Lincoln. The first time I met him 
was in a caucus of the Republican members 
of the Illinois House of Representatives, of 
which I was a member, in the winter of 
1857. The meeting was held in Mr. Lin- 
coln's office in Springfield, Illinois. I was 
much interested in observing his homely, 
friendly, cordial manners, and the candor 
and good sense in what he had to say. 
There were those of the Senate and House 
who had been elected in opposition to Dem- 
ocratic candidates, but who had not become 
identified with the new Republican party. 
These men not long afterward became Re- 

109 



LINCOLN — By MEN 

publicans. Among these was Senator Gil- 
lespie, subsequently generally known as 
Judge Gillespie. He had been an old Whig 
friend of Mr. Lincoln. During the session 
of our caucus, Mr. Lincoln said: "Boys, 
what do you say to having old Joe Gillespie 
in here?" There being general assent, the 
Senator was sent for, and it was interesting 
to see the cordial, friendly manner in which 
they greeted each other. I afterward came 
to know Judge Gillespie quite well, and 
have heard him say many an affectionate 
word concerning his old friend, years after 
that old friend had, by the universal acclaim 
of mankind, been enshrined among the im- 
mortals. 

I once attended a reception by Mr. and 
Mrs. Lincoln at their old-fashioned resi- 
dence in Springfield. The invitation I re- 
ceived was in the handwriting of Mr. Lin- 

110 



WHO K N E W HIM 

coin. I have it yet. The guests were re- 
ceived in an informal and friendly manner 
by Mrs. Lincoln. On being ushered up- 
stairs I found Mr. Lincoln and the Demo- 
cratic State Auditor, whose name, as I re- 
member it, was Jones, sitting on a high post 
bed, chatting with each other, Mr. Lincoln 
particularly greeting all who came into the 
room. Mr. Lincoln was not then talked of 
for the presidency — certainly not outside of 
his own State. 

In the spring of 1858, having been ad- 
mitted to the bar, and intending to give up 
the profession of medicine, I wrote to Mn 
Lincoln, requesting the use of his name as 
a reference on my professional card as a 
lawyer. He had known me as a physician, 
and in writing to him I said nothing about 
my change of profession, and so in replying 
he seemed to be in doubt as to whether I 

111 



LINCOLN — By MEN 

was the same Blades he had known. So 
he wrote: **I do not know whether you are 
Dr. Blades or not. If you are Dr. Blades, 
you may use my name; if you are not Dr. 
Blades, if Dr. Blades says you may use 
my name, you may do so." 

Some time afterward I met him in Spring- 
field, and taking me by the hand he said, 
with an amused twinkle in his eye: **You 
got my letter, did you?" And then he re- 
peated it. The excuse I offer for intro- 
ducing this incident, so personal to myself, 
is its quaintness of style, so characteristic of 
him, and so graphically apparent in the 
famous and caustic reply to Mr. Greeley. 
I don*t know what became of the letter, but 
I think that it was stolen from among my 
papers when packing for my move to Cali- 
fornia. 

I was a member of the Republican State 

112 



WHO K N E W HIM 

convention of 1858, before which Lincoln 
made the famous speech in which he re- 
peated the saying of Christ, that a house 
divided against itself cannot stand, and in 
which he contended that the States of the 
Union must all become free or all slave. 
He gave no hint that he was in favor of divi- 
sion, or that he was in favor of the domestic 
institutions of all the States becoming the 
same; but Stephen A. Douglas, in cam- 
paigning over the State, seeking re-election 
as Senator, perverted and misstated and mis- 
represented what he said, and contended that 
Mr. Lincoln was really in favor of making 
the domestic institutions the same in all the 
States. Mr. Lincoln had said that he did 
not believe that the Union would be dis- 
solved, but did believe that the opponents 
of slavery would arrest the further spread 
of it, and place it where the public mind 

113 



LINCOLN — By MEN 

would rest in the belief that it was in the 
course of ultimate extinction; or its advo- 
cates "would push it forward, till it would 
become alike lawful in all the States, old 
as well as new. North as well as South." 
His manner of delivery of that speech was 
calm, deliberate, dispassionate and without 
a single gesture. There were over-cautious 
Republicans who thought that he had bet- 
ter have omitted some things that he said; 
and, in fact, it formed the principal capital 
stock of Mr. Douglas in his campaign for 
the senatorship; but the result demonstrated 
that Lincoln was a great political prophet 
and statesman. 

I was a delegate to the State Republican 
convention which met at Decatur, the county 
seat of Macon county, in 1860, which se- 
lected the delegates to the National Conven- 
tion, then soon to meet in Chicago for the 

114 



WHO KNEW HIM 

purpose of nominating a candidate for the 
presidency, and which instructed those dele- 
gates to support Mr. Lincoln's candidacy. 
Mr. Lincoln was present and was seated on 
the platform during the session of the con- 
vention. While the convention was in ses- 
sion, Mr. Hanks, a cousin of Mr. Lincoln, 
and another man came into the hall, bear- 
ing aloft two old rails, between which was 
stretched a banner on which was printed the 
statement that the rails were a part of a lot 
of rails made by Mr. Lincoln in the county 
of Macon, many years before. Mr. Hanks 
had at the time worked with Mr. Lincoln 
in making the rails, and personally no doubt 
remembered better than Mr. Lincoln could 
then recall that the statement was true. 
When the rails were brought in, the entire 
body of the delegates rose to their feet, wav- 
ing their hats and cheering at the top of 

115 



LINCOLN — By MEN 

their voices, and shouting, "Lincoln! Lin- 
coln! Lincoln!'* He came to the front of 
the platform looking very much amused, 
holding his hands folded in front of him. 
He spoke briefly, saying it was true that 
vv^hen he was a young man he made some 
rails in Macon county, but he really could 
not say whether the rails brought in by Mr. 
Hanks were a part of the lot or not. I 
have seen a statement in some magazine that 
this incident occurred in the National Con- 
vention at Chicago, but I personally know 
that it did not, for I was present in both con- 
ventions, though not a delegate in the Chi- 
cago convention. Of course, it would not 
have been tolerated in the National Conven- 
tion, where there was more than one candi- 
date for the nomination. 

I do not think that Mr. Lincoln was very 
confident of being nominated at Chicago. A 

116 



WHO K NEW HIM 

friend and neighbor of his from Springfield 
said that before coming away he inquired of 
him if he was going to attend the conven- 
tion. Mr. Lincoln replied that he was not; 
that he was most too much of a candidate 
to attend, and hardly enough of a candidate 
to stay away. 

I was considerably younger than Mr. Lin- 
coln and, besides, did not see him frequently 
enough to become on terms of intimacy with 
him. He knev/ enough of me to regard me 
as a personal and political friend, and I knew 
enough of him to know that many of the 
purported anecdotes that I have often read 
of him were gross and scandalous caricatures 
of him. He was hearty and cordial in man- 
ner toward those with whom he was on terms 
of friendship. I was particularly indignant 
when I read the coarse and vulgar fiction of 
him which appeared in "The Crisis.*' The 

117 



LINCOLN — By MEN 

vulgar, ill-bred familiarity which, in "The 
Crisis", characterizes the supposed intercourse 
between Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Joseph Medill 
is repulsive and without the least foundation 
in the character of either of them. Medill 
was considerably younger than Mr. Lincoln, 
and had no intimate or long-standing ac- 
quaintance with him. While Mr. Lincoln 
was not in the least assertive of his dignity 
and self-respect, yet there was that about 
him which would prevent any one from slap- 
ping him on the back and calling him **Abe,'* 
except it might possibly be the few who were 
familiar with him from his young manhood 
and who had kept pace with him in his grad- 
ually increasing social standing. 

In the long past I occasionally heard inter- 
esting and amusing anecdotes of Mr. Lin- 
coln by Judge Weldon and others who used 
to meet him at the bar of the old eighth 

118 



WHO KNEW HIM 

judicial circuit, in which Judge David Davis 
presided, but I cannot recall them with suffi- 
cient distinctness to make it worth while to 
relate them. It is true I might supply the 
want of memory by fictions, as some of his 
biographers have done. 

An anecdote told me many years ago by 
my friend Beckv/ith, a lawyer of Danville, 
Illinois, now lamented as dead, I will ven- 
ture to relate. Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Vor- 
hees, a distinguished lawyer, a sometime 
United States Senator for Indiana, were en- 
gaged on opposite sides of a suit in the Cir- 
cuit Court of Danville. In arguing a ques- 
tion to the judge, Mr. Vorhees made some 
discourteous and rather offensive remarks 
about Mr. Lincoln. When Mr. Lincoln 
came to reply he so unmercifully and at the 
same time so humorously ridiculed Mr. Vor- 

119 



LINCOLN — By MEN 

hees that some of the lawyers ran out of the 
court house and lay down on the grass in 
explosions of laughter. Mr. Vorhees took 
great offense, and in the evening called at 
the room where Mr. Lincoln, Judge Davis 
and some others were engaged in social chat, 
and furiously assailed — not assaulted — Mr. 
Lincoln, but he came off much worsted, as 
he had in the discussion before the judge. 

It is much to be lamented that Judge 
David Davis did not leave on record his 
recollections of Mr. Lincoln. Mr. Lincoln 
practiced many years before him, and they 
were probably on more intimate terms than 
any others after Mr. Lincoln began the prac- 
tice of the law. Judge Davis was a man 
of infinite humor, which often cropped out 
while on the bench, and could heartily appre- 
ciate the humor of Mr. Lincoln. Why did 

120 



WHO KNEW HIM 

he not leave memoirs of his intimate friend, 
to be read through all time? 

In 1861 I was a member of the Illinois 
House of Representatives, elected as a Re- 
publican, and was present during the entire 
regular session, beginning in January, and 
also attended the special session convened in 
April, on the calling for 75,000 troops by 
the President on the fall of Fort Sumter. 
That winter, during the sitting of the regu- 
lar session, was the most gloomy and de- 
spondent period of my life. I felt sure that 
the Southern States meant permanent seces- 
sion even if they had to fight for it. But 
they did not anticipate civil war. In the 
South it was generally believed that the 
people of the North were so commercialized 
and were so divided in partisanship that war 
for the Union would be "impossible." On 

121 



LINCOLN — By MEN 

the other hand, the levity with which the 
secession movement was for the most part 
regarded by Repubhcans, and which was 
distinctly manifest among the Republican 
members of the legislature, to me was inex- 
plicable and depressing. Sensible men, and 
even good friends, regarded my gloomy ap- 
prehension as next thing to absurd. 

During the session of the legislature, a 
convention of the Democracy was held in 
the hall which had been given up to them 
by vote of the House. I was a lobby on- 
looker of that convention, and the incendiary 
speeches which were made and applauded 
to the echo, and the misapprehensions of Mr. 
Lincoln, were so vividly impressed on my 
memory that now, nearly fifty years after, 
they are recalled with almost startling dis- 
tinctness. Among my papers I have pre- 

122 



WHO KNEW H I M 

served a copy of the Missouri Republican 
(now the Missouri Republic), of the date 
of January 19, 1861, purporting to give a 
verbatim report of the speeches. Among the 
most eloquent was that of Henry S. Fitch, 
Buchanan's United States District Attorney 
for the Northern District of IlHnois. The 
speech itself was not disloyal, but the re- 
sponses it drew out showed the temper of 
the members to be as favorable to the South 
as the most fiery secessionist could wish. 
Fitch played on that convention as if it were 
a musical instrument. Among other things, 
he said: "This Union was purchased by 
blood; it was cemented by blood; and isn't 
it worth saving by blood now?" "No, 
No!" was the universal response. "I say 
it is," said he, and that was hissed. And 
then he said, "But blood won't save it," and 

123 



LINCOLN — By MEN 

that was uproariously applauded. The re- 
port in the paper states that when he said it 
was worth saving by blood he was greatly 
applauded, but that applause came from Re- 
publicans who had gathered in the lobby. 
Poor, dear, loyal, brilliantly eloquent fel- 
low! he died in the far South, a major in 
the Union army. 

A Mr. William Homes made a speech. 
Among other things, he said : 

"Gentlemen of the Convention and Fel- 
low Citizens: I know one thing to be true: 
that it would be no difficult matter to pro- 
duce civil war in Illinois. I know that the 
state of feeling which might be fanned into 
a flame is so deep here in this city now that, 
if it correctly represents, as I believe it does, 
the feelings of the State, it might break out 
into an act of secession at home, and Illinois 
thus become a divided State.*' 

124 



WHO KNEW HIM 

R. T. Merrick, of Chicago, among many 
other things, said : 

*'I feel that I cannot be in error when I 
say that this Union never can be saved fci; 
force. Coercion! — force! This is war — 
war upon the Southern States — not on South 
CaroKna alone — not on the cotton States 
alone — but upon the entire South. For be 
assured, gentlemen, that whether the border 
States follow the secession of States of the 
extreme South or not, they will most cer- 
tainly regard any hostile attack upon these 
Southern States as an attack upon them- 
selves. It will be a war, then, upon fifteen 
States. Are you prepared for such a war? 
(Shouts of Wo, no! Fight here!') No, 
gentlemen, thank God! fanaticism has not 
yet so hardened our hearts that we are ready 
to imbrue our hands in the blood of our 
brothers. (Applause.) Such a war would 

125 



LINCOLN — By MEN 

be most accursed, wicked, unjust, cruel and 
diabolical ; and if the Republican leaders ex- 
pect that it would be a war in the Southern 
States — a war at a distance so far removed 
from the North that those who had brought 
it on would not even be disturbed by the roar 
of its cannon, let them undeceive themselves 
at once. The tone and feeling of this conven- 
tion responds to my own ; and I am satisfied 
that, if such a conflict ever comes, it will be 
war in the North, cmd not war in the South, 
(Applause.) It will be war in Chicago — 
war in Springfield — war on the broad prai- 
ries of Illinois. (Loud applause.) Before 
the patriotic people of this State will allow 
an invading force to pass beyond its borders 
to subjugate the South, they will make one 
vast mausoleum of your State. (Continued 
applause.)'* 

Mr. Richardson, not long before a Sen- 

126 



WHO KNEW HIM 

ator of the United States, in his speech to 
the convention, said: "Why, Mr. Lincoln 
has said, and Mr. Seward has said, *Away 
with this doctrine of the inequaHty of races. 
It is in violation of the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence. The government cannot endure 
half slave and half free.' Mr. Seward said 
in Ohio: *You, my friends, must turn in 
and help me; we can extinguish this thing 
of slavery.' " How false he must have 
known his words to be ! 

Now, at the time this convention was 
being held, the South Carolina legislature 
was pushing through a bill to call out and 
arm 1 0,000 troops ; and batteries were being 
erected to bombard Fort Sumter. Four 
States had already seceded. Senators and 
representatives from these States were resign- 
ing from the House and Senate. And yet, 
if this threatened war on the part of the 

127 



LINCOLN — By MEN 

South were resisted, we were told there 
would be war in Illinois — war in Chicago. 
No word of sympathy for Mr. Lincoln, who, 
in his home, not much more than a stone's 
throw from the hall of the convention, was 
brooding sadly, weighed down with the 
awful responsibility that rested on him to 
save the Union, if, in the face of a united 
South, and the great body of an intensely 
hostile party in the North, it could be saved. 
Everything was said calculated to encourage 
the secessionists. Mr. Lincoln and the man 
he had determined on to be his Secretary 
of State were misrepresented as holding senti- 
ments hostile to the South, which they had 
never expressed, and did not entertain. I 
relate these things here to show the situation 
— the awfully discouraging situation — that 
Mr. Lincoln faced in January, 1861. 

Governor Yates was condemned for rec- 

128 



WHO KNEW HIM 

ommending a reorganization of the militia. 
In the House a Democrat (Green of Mas- 
sac) moved to amend the militia bill by pro- 
viding that the militia be armed with corn- 
stalks; and yet these people professed to be 
in favor of the Union. Yes; but it was to 
be only such a Union as would be satisfac- 
tory to the most radical of the slaveholders. 
But even that sort of a Union these slave- 
holders would not then have accepted. They 
disliked the Northern people. They were 
more unlike the Northern people than they 
were unlike the people of England. Their 
manners were different from ours. Their 
education had been different. Their dialect 
was different. Slavery had made them aris- 
tocrats. They placed the laboring man on 
a level with their negroes. They expected 
to win without civil war. And they would 
have won had they not fired a gun — if they 
had not attacked Fort Sumter. 

-9 129 



LINCOLN — By MEN 

The Springfield convention, in response to 
Democratic conventions which had been held 
in Kentucky and Indiana, as a means of con- 
ciliating the South, recommended the calling 
of a convention of all the States to amend the 
constitution. The Missouri Republican, in 
an editorial discussing this method of settling 
the trouble, recommended that resort to se- 
cession as a remedy should be had only after 
"all other means of reconciliation have been 
exhausted." 

In the midst of the gloom and portents of 
the on-coming tragedy of civil war, Mr. Lin- 
coln showed a willingness to conciliate the 
great Northern party which was so thought- 
lessly feeding the fires of secession. He was 
willing to concede something in the way of 
compromise which did not contemplate a 
surrender of the principles of which he had 
been the foremost advocate, and which he 

130 



WHO KNEW HIM 

deemed not to be inconsistent with the do- 
mestic institutions of the slaveholding States ; 
for he was naturally a conservative man, and 
always held that by virtue of the constitu- 
tion the slaveholder was entitled to have his 
fugitive slaves returned to him. No com- 
promise could be framed that would stop 
the agitation by those in the North who be- 
lieved that slavery was sinful. He, with 
the great majority of the North, believed 
slavery to be wrong, but they faithfully re- 
garded the constitutional obligation to pro- 
tect it in the slaveholding States. Nor could 
any compromise prevent the operations of 
the underground railroad, which but few, 
comparatively, were engaged in conducting, 
but in the operation of which everybody 
would have taken part if secession had suc- 
ceeded. 

Deeming it not unwise to make some re- 

131 



LINCOLN — By MEN 

sponse to the sentiment which seemed to be 
so extensively entertained, not only in Illi- 
nois, but throughout the North, in favor of 
offering compromise, as expressed by the Illi- 
nois convention, even if no other effect should 
be produced than to demonstrate the folly 
of expecting that the South would enter- 
tain any proposition of compromise whatever, 
Mr. Lincoln drafted a preamble and resolu- 
tions which he caused to be adopted by the 
Illinois legislature, which were entered in the 
House and Senate journals, as follows : 

"Mr. Jarrot, from the Committee on Fed- 
eral Relations, to which was referred sundry 
resolutions referring to the condition of the 
Union, reported the same back with the fol- 
lowing preamble and resolutions: 

**Whereas, Although the people of the 
State of Illinois do not desire any change in 
our Federal Constitution, yet as several of 
our sister States have indicated that they 
deem it necessary that some amendment 
should be made thereto; and 

132 



WHO KNEW HIM 

"Whereas. In and by the Fifth Article 
of the Constitution of the United States, pro- 
vision is made for proposing amendments to 
that instrument, either by Congress or by a 
convention; and 

"Whereas, A desire has been expressed 
in various parts of the United States for a 
convention to propose amendments to the 
Constitution; therefore, be it 

'^Resolved b^ the General Assembl]^ of 
the State of Illinois, That if appHcation shall 
be made to Congress by any of the States 
deeming themselves aggrieved, to call a con- 
vention, in accordance with the constitu- 
tional provision aforesaid, to propose amend- 
ments to the Constitution of these United 
States, that the Legislature of the State of 
Illinois will and does hereby concur in mak- 
ing such application. 

"Reso/veJ, That until the people of these 
United States shall otherwise direct, the 
present Federal Union must be preserved as 
it is, and the present Constitution and laws 
must be administered as they are; and to 
this end, in conformity to that Constitution 
and the laws, the whole resources of the 
State of Illinois are hereby pledged to the 
Federal authorities. 

133 



LINCOLN — By MEN 

**Resolvedy That copies of the above pre- 
amble and resolutions be sent to each of the 
Representatives and Senators in Congress 
and to the Executives of the several 
States/'* 

This important document has so far es- 
caped the historian, for at the time of its 
passage it did not purport to come from 
Lincoln. There is no record that he had 
anything to do with it; nor was it publicly 
given out that he wrote the resolutions. But 
I knov/ very well that he did write them. 
It was not concealed from the Republican 
members of the Legislature that he wrote 
them. I was very well acquainted with 
every Republican member, and I know that 
no one of them claimed to be the author. I 
do not remember who introduced them, nor, 



*The preamble and resolutions were voted on separately and as a 
whole and adopted by the House. (House Journal, pp. 301, 802, 
303. 304. Feb 1.) Concurred in by Senate. (Senate Journal, p. 
231, Feb. 2, 1861.) Concurrence reported back to House. (House 
Journal, p. 534, Feb. 13, 1861.) Printed also in the public laws ol 
1861, p. 281. 

134 



WHO KNEW HIM 

indeed, that anyone did. I have the impres- 
sion, though indistinct after the lapse of 
nearly fifty years, that no one did, but that 
they were privately handed to Mr. Vital 
Jarrot, chairman of the Committee on Fed- 
eral Relations, and by him reported to the 
House. I sat near Mr. Jarrot during the 
entire session and was on familiar, almost 
intimate, terms with him. I think it was 
from him that I received my impression as 
to the authorship. Mr. Jarrot was a most 
excellent, sensible gentleman and a true pa- 
triot. He was one of the not many Repub- 
lican members of the House who deemed it 
important that some offer of compromise 
should be made, though having but little 
faith that any offer would be accepted by 
the Southern people. He thought that it 
should be offered for its effect on our politi- 
cal opponents, if no other benefit should 

come of it. 

135 



LINCOLN — By MEN 

It failed to effect anything, and it remained 
for the firing on Sumter to disabuse the 
minds of those who professed to be hopeful 
that the South would yield to compromise. 
The many thousands of Southern Illinois, 
relied on by the Springfield orators to fight 
in Springfield and in the streets of Chicago, 
led by the brilliant and gallant Logan, ral- 
lied under the banner of the Union on the 
bloody fields of the South. 

I heard the last speech Senator Douglas 
ever made. On the invitation of the House 
of Representatives of Illinois, at the special 
session in April, 1861, he made a strong 
and patriotic appeal for a united effort in 
resisting the attempt of the slave power to 
destroy the Union. His towering ambition 
to become President (from the much lower 
moral plane on the subject of slavery than 
that of Mr. Lincoln) had tumbled to ruin. 

136 



WHO KNEW HIM 

I have a vivid recollection of the appeal he 
made on the one hand to the Republicans 
to use with moderation, and in a spirit of 
conciliation to their Democratic opponents, 
the control they had come to have in the 
affairs of the government; and on the other 
hand, to his Democratic friends, "not to 
allow their opposition to the Republican 
party to turn them into traitors to their 
country." This almost startling expression 
aroused angry feeling in many Democratic 
members, and it was suppressed in the print- 
ed speech, but I was sitting near him and I 
know he said it. Poor man ! From Spring- 
field he went home to Chicago, soon to die 
in the full prime of his great powers, for he 
was only forty-eight years of age. Often, 
often since I have thought of the solemn 
words, "Death, death, death," he uttered as 
he lay on his deathbed in the old Tremont 

13? 



LINCOLN — By MEN 

House in Chicago. Had he not died he 
might have greatly distinguished himself on 
the fields of war, and finally become Presi- 
dent of the United States. 

People of a later generation can have no 
adequate appreciation of the intense hostil- 
ity, and even hatred, with which Mr. Lin- 
coln was regarded by his political opponents. 
We who lived then and were heartily with 
him in his efforts to maintain the Union 
could see, and did see, that many of them 
exulted when they heard that he was killed. 
They dared not much to show it, else 
they themselves would have been killed. 
Blinded by intense partisan spirit, and blind 
to the fact that the slave power had long 
been planning either to make it lawful to 
carry their slaves into every quarter of the 
Union or to dissolve the Union, they laid 
the whole trouble at the door of those who 

138 



WHO KNEW HIM 

were simply resisting the further extension 

of slavery. 

The principal organ of these opponents 

of Mr. Lincoln in Illinois was the Chicago 

Daily Times, owned and edited by Wilbur 

F. Storey. On the first day of July, 1 864, 

it published an editorial out of v/hich I cut 

the following extract : 

*'We have no disposition to taunt Ken- 
tucky in her present condition, but if this 
resolution is true (referring to a resolution 
of the Democratic State Convention held 
on the 28th of June) we must infer that her 
people are not free. Democratic news- 
papers are not permitted to circulate in the 
State, and she is deprived of the other 
enumerated essentials of a free government. 
She is not thus bound because her sons are 
'pigeon-livered and lack gall to make oppres- 
sion bitter,' but she waits and hopes that 
she may be unfettered without resorting to 
force to re-establish law. She will not wait 
many months, nor will the nation delay in 
rising to her rescue if a fraudulent presi- 

139 



LINCOLN — By MEN 

dential election should in form re-invest Mr. 
Lincoln in his present office. He cannot be 
fairly and lawfully elected, and the people 
have determined that he shall not hold office 
if elected by fraud. He could not be more 
worthless dead than he is living, but he 
would be infinitely less mischievous, and his 
corpse, repulsive as it would be in its freshest 
state and richest and most graceful habili- 
ments, would yet be the most appropriate 
sacrifice which the insulted nation could offer 
in atonement for its submission to his im- 
becility and despotism." 

Who could doubt that that man Storey 
and the patrons of his paper rejoiced in their 
secret souls when their tool, John Wilkes 
Booth, shot Lincoln down on the night of 
April 14, 1865? When General Burnside 
was in command of the department of Ohio, 
he ordered the Chicago Times to be sup- 
pressed. Mr. Lincoln's "despotism** was 
such that he countermanded the order! 



140 



Recollections of 
Abraham Lincoln 

By MR. JOHN W. BUNN 

of Springfield, Illinois, Related in a Correspond- 
ence -H^ith Isaac N. Phillips 



Recollections of 
Abraham Lincoln 

By MR. JOHN W. BUNN 

oi Springfield, Illinois, Related in a Correspond- 
ence with Isaac N. Phillips 



LETTER OF MR. PHILLIPS 

Bloomington, Illinois, October 25, 1910. 
Mr. John W. Bunn, Springfield. 111. 

My Dear Sir: You have often, in idle hours 
related to me your recollections of Lincoln. I feel 
that some of the things you have told me should 
be preserved in a permanent form. I am just 
now helping to get out a little book of recollections 
of Lincoln by a number of men who knew him quite 
well. I am sure no man now living had a nearer 
view of Lincoln, in the period covered by the last 
dozen years before his assumption of the presi- 
dency, than you had. I am further sure that no 
man's recollections of Lincoln at that period are 
clearer or more reliable than yours. You are not 
a man who is disposed to state doubtful things 
or to try to exaggerate your own knowledge of, or 
143 



LINCOLN — By MEN 

associations with, Mr. Lincoln. Others have been 
less modest. 

Very few men are now living who knew Lincoln 
well before the war — certainly but few whose 
recollections are to be depended upon. I am per- 
suaded that much is now related concerning Lincoln 
that is of very doubtful authenticity. I therefore 
feel I have some right to ask you to put in form 
some of the things you have often told me in pri- 
vate conversation. I wish you to state what kind 
of a man Lincoln was socially, and what kind of a 
man he was as a politician, if he was a politician. 
Please embody these recollections and estimates 
in a letter to me, so I may preserve them in a per- 
manent form and give them publicity. Some errors 
which have crept into the public mind may thus 
be corrected, and you will have helped to give the 
future a more correct view of the most interesting 
if not the greatest, character of modern times. 
Very truly yours, 

Isaac N. Phillips. 



144 



WHO KNEW HIM 

LETTER OF MR. BUNN. 
Springfield, III., Nov. 8, 1910. 
Isaac N. Phillips, Esq., Bloomington, III. 

My Dear Sir: Your request that I 
should give you, in a letter, some of my per- 
sonal recollections of Mr. Lincoln and my 
estimate of him, both in a social way and as 
a politician, is before me. My answer shall 
be made wholly from my personal knowl- 
edge and observation of the man. I shall, of 
course, not try to exhaust the subject, but 
will give you a little of Lincoln as I saw him 
and as I knew him. If, in doing this, it 
should appear that I put in a good deal about 
myself, I must plead as an excuse that I 
could not write my recollections of Lincoln 
without, to some extent, writing about 
myself. 

I was born in Hunterdon county. New 
Jersey, in the year 1 83 1 . I had a brother, 
Jacob Bunn, who, in the year 1 840, settled 

145 



LINCOLN — By MEN 

in Springfield, Illinois, carrying on there a 
wholesale and retail grocery business. In 
1847, when I was in my sixteenth year, I 
came to live in Springfield in order to be 
with my brother, and I have lived at Spring- 
field ever since. In 1847, when I came to 
Illinois, Lincoln had lived and practiced law 
at Springfield for ten years and had become 
somewhat distinguished throughout the State. 
In fact, he was then serving a term in con- 
gress from the district which included Sanga- 
mon county, Illinois. My early contact with 
Mr. Lincoln was brought about by the fact 
that he was my brother's regular attorney. 
Almost immediately after coming to Illinois 
I began to know Lincoln in such a way as a 
boy knows a prominent man whom he often 
sees and talks with. 

In the year 1853, I remember that Judge 
Douglas made a great political speech in the 
State House. Lincoln was present and 

146 



WHO KNEW HIM 

heard him, and gave notice that he would 
answer Douglas, one evening very soon, 
from the same platform. It was a way Lin- 
coln had to talk with people and find out the 
views they took of current events, but he 
seldom or never asked anybody's advice. 
Accordingly, the next day after Douglas 
had made his speech Lincoln came along and 
stopped to talk with me upon the sidewalk in 
front of my brother's store. He said to me, 
"Did you hear the speech of Judge Douglas 
last night?" I answered that I had heard 
the speech, and he said, "What do you think 
of it?" I replied, "Mr. Lincoln, I think it 
was a very able speech, and you will have a 
good deal of trouble to answer it." To this 
he replied, "I will answer that speech with- 
out any trouble, because Judge Douglas 
made two misstatements of fact, and upon 
these two misstatements he built his whole 

argument. I can show that his facts are not 
147 



LINCOLN — By MEN 

facts, and that will refute his speech." I 
was present and heard the reply which Mr. 
Lincoln made to Judge Douglas' speech, 
and to my mind he did disprove Douglas' 
facts, and, as I thought, completely answered 
his arguments. 

When Mr. Lincoln was elected to con- 
gress in 1846, he was the only Whig con- 
gressman from Illinois. He served one term 
in congress and was not a candidate to suc- 
ceed himself. After his return to private 
life, he was recognized as the leader of the 
Whig party in Illinois, just as Judge Doug- 
las was recognized as the leader of the 
Democratic party in the State. These two 
men were the spokesmen of their respective 
parties, and no one disputed their supremacy. 
Judge Douglas soon became the leader of 
the Democrats of the whole North, if not of 
the South. These two men were leaders 
both in debate and in private council. 

148 



WHO KNEW HIM 

Although the Repubhcan party first be- 
gan to take form in 1854, it was not fully 
organized until the year 1856, when Fre- 
mont was its candidate for president. Lin- 
coln and Douglas, as leaders of their par- 
ties, were always rivals and political an- 
tagonists. Their greatest contest was when 
they met as rival candidates for the Senate 
in the great debate of 1858. Douglas was 
successful and Lincoln was defeated, but 
the apparent defeat of Lincoln in that can- 
vass was not a real defeat, for in that cele- 
brated debate he laid the foundations, broad 
and deep, for his success over Douglas in the 
great presidential campaign of 1 860. In the 
latter campaign Lincoln carried Illinois 
against his rival. 

Lincoln was always a party man and was 
careful to observe and to control, within the 
sphere of his influence, every detail of party 
organization. He was always in close touch 

149 



LINCOLN — By MEN 

with the leaders of his party in the State. 
The primaries in his own ward and city, the 
county convention, and the State convention 
were each and all matters of deep personal 
concern to him. I do not mean that he 
always engaged, personally, in all the de- 
tails of local campaigns, but the men who 
did the work were generally in his confi- 
dence, and were men who were glad to act 
upon his advice and suggestions. All these 
things were matters which Mr. Lincoln not 
only took pride in but enjoyed, just as any 
man enjoys the things that he does well and 
does with success. 

These things, which I state as facts of my 
own knowledge, certainly show that Lincoln 
was a practical politician, but he was not 
altogether like many other practical poli- 
ticians. He had his personal ambitions, but 
he never told any man his deeper plans, and 

few, if any, knew his inner thoughts. What 

ISO 



WHO KNEW HIM 

was strictly private and personal to himself, 
he never confided to any man on earth. 
When men have told of conversations with 
Lincoln in which they represent him as giving 
out either political or family affairs of a very 
sacred and secret character, their tales may 
be set down as false. Furthermore, Lincoln 
was as shrewd and unerring a judge of 
human nature as any man I have ever known. 
He understood the men about him, and he 
looked through and through them. If he had 
been going to do a thing so improbable, so 
contrary to his nature, as to reveal the se- 
crets of his inmost family life to any man 
whatever, we may be sure his great knowl- 
edge of men would have enabled him to 
select someone who could be trusted not to 
betray his confidence to the world almost the 
moment his eyes closed in death. 

What I have said of Lincoln's disposition 

to keep his own counsels does not in any way 

151 



LINCOLN — By MEN 

contradict the commonly accepted notion 
that he was a most genial man and that he 
was easily approachable. He was in fact a 
popular man with all who knew him and 
was generally well liked, personally, not only 
by his own supporters, but by the members of 
the party opposed to him, or at least by those 
members of the opposing party who were 
sufficiently broadminded not to be very bitter 
partisans. 

As I have already indicated, Lincoln 
never, to my knowledge, sought the advice 
of his friends and associates as to what he 
should do, even in matters of great impor- 
tance. However sincerely and confidently 
Lincoln may have worked for the success of 
his party, of which he was the acknowledged 
leader, neither his own personal interests nor 
the interests of his party ever, in my judg- 
ment, to any extent, controlled his political 

opinions or his public utterances. Lincoln 

152 



WHO KNEW HIM 

may have kept many things to himself, and 
in many matters it may be said he was secre- 
tive, but, whenever he did speak, he said 
what he really thought. He never dealt in 
double meanings or used language for the 
purpose of concealing his opinions. 

When, in the debate of 1 858, Lincoln ad- 
vanced some views, and said some things, 
which aroused the protests of his political 
associates, he was undisturbed by the criti- 
cisms that were made. It was subsequently 
demonstrated that he saw further and more 
clearly than those who accused him of ruin- 
ing his own prospects and making trouble for 
his party. On this occasion, as on many 
others, in his public life, he relied on his own 
judgment, and his judgment proved to be 
correct. 

Lincoln's entire career proves that it is 

quite possible for a man to be adroit and 

skillful and effective in politics, without in 
-10 153 



LINCOLN — By MEN 

any degree sacrificing moral principles. Lit- 
tle men try to do the same things he did, and 
make very bad work of it. They lack the 
high moral inspiration that animated Lin- 
coln. Lincoln presents the most remarkable 
case in American history of a man who could 
be a practical politician and at the same time 
be a statesman in the highest sense of both 
terms. Lincoln was a high-minded patriot. 
He appreciated intellectual and educated 
men, but he was at the same time a com- 
moner — a man of the people. He never, 
however, went out and told the people, in 
terms, that he was one of them. They knew 
this without any assertions of the fact. He 
was always ready to give his best energies, 
and finally did give his life to the service of 
his country, but it is not true that he listened 
to the popular clamor, in order to avoid po- 
litical storms, so far at least as they affected 

his personal interests or his political pros- 
154 



WHO KNEW HIM 

pects. If what he said or did did not meet 
with popular approval he had the patience 
and the foresight to wait for the advance of 
public opinion. He did not doubt his own 
ability to see great situations and to solve 
great political and moral questions, and he 
always waited with perfect composure the 
ultimate triumph of that truth and justice 
which was his high and only aim. 

Between 1850 and 1861, I saw Mr. Lin- 
coln very often. I am proud to say that I 
was one of his junior political agents. Like 
very many others, I was always glad to do 
for him anything that I could do. I v/as 
often present at political gatherings, held for 
the purpose of consultation, and I thus came 
to know pretty v/ell the workings of his mind, 
so far as they could be learned from close 
personal contact and observation. I cer- 
tainly knew something about his personal 

bearing and concerning the attitude of others 

155 



LINCOLN — By MEN 

towards him. I never heard any man call 
Mr. Lincoln "Abe," and he certainly was 
never spoken of as "Abe" in his own pres- 
ence. It was not until the campaign of 1 860 
that I began to hear the talk about "Abe" 
Lincoln and "Honest Abe." His associates 
always callled him "Mr. Lincoln." It may 
be that sometimes men like Judge Logan, 
John T. Stuart, Judge Davis or Leonard 
Swett, called him simply "Lincoln." His 
associates treated him with the respect that 
was due to his position, and he always be- 
haved with dignity, so far as I observed. 
Many fictions of a later day have grown up 
about Mr. Lincoln. They are mostly exag- 
gerations indulged in by persons who delight 
in telling a striking tale, and not infre- 
quently for the purpose of making the relator 
seem important in his relations with Lincoln. 
All representations of Mr. Lincoln as a 

clown or a buffoon are false, and these 
156 



WHO KNEW HIM 

things, to the real friends of Lincoln — men 
who really knew him well — are very offen- 
sive. I have always felt outraged by them. 

I am also able to testify from knowledge 
that Mr. Lincoln was not so slovenly in his 
dress, and so ungainly in his appearance, as 
many have represented him to be. He was 
angular in his person, but he was agile in his 
movements and far less awkward in his mo- 
tions than he has been represented to be. He 
always seemed to me to be as neat in his per- 
son and clothing as the common run of 
lawyers at the Western bar. 

The impression has gone forth that Lin- 
coln was always greatly embarrassed in the 
presence of ladies, and, indeed, that he sel- 
dom talked to ladies at all. Now, I have 
repeatedly seen Mr. Lincoln in social gath- 
erings at Springfield, at the houses of promi- 
nent residents. At such places he was nearly 

always surrounded by ladies, who took spe- 
157 



LINCOLN — By MEN 

cial delight in talking to him. I did not ob- 
serve his great embarrassment. I know that 
it may be said generally that he was as popu- 
lar among women as he was among men. 
Women delighted to hear him talk, and he, 
to my certain knowledge, could talk very in- 
terestingly to them. They used to gather 
about him and make him talk. This was in 
Springfield at his home, and all I say of 
Lincoln is confined to the period before his 
departure for Washington. 

In the year 1857 Mr. Lincoln asked me 
one day if I did not wish to run for city 
treasurer of Springfield. The city was then 
an almost hopelessly Democratic city, and 
the proposition rather startled me. He, how- 
ever, gave me encouragement to believe that 
I could be elected, if I would go about the 
matter in the right way. My brother, Jacob 
Bunn, who was present at the time, said to 
Mr. Lincoln, "Jol^n will run if you want him 

158 



WHO KNEW HIM 

to.*' The candidate of the Democrats was 
Mr. Charles Ridgely. I confess I was 
pleased with the idea, and, when the Re- 
publican city convention met, I was an in- 
terested auditor of the proceedings. I ex- 
pected to hear my own virtues extolled in the 
lofty way that was common in such conven- 
tions. Lincoln had told me nothing of his 
plans as to how the announcement of my 
candidacy would be made, or in what man- 
ner I would be brought out. The conven- 
tion was nearly over, and I began to think 
the matter of my nomination had been for- 
gotten. In a city so Democratic as Spring- 
field, Republican nominations were regarded 
at best as rather formal and perfunctory mat- 
ters. Near the close of the convention a 
young man — a lawyer who was an inmate 
of Lincoln's office — addressed the chairman, 
and said he would like to make a nomination 

for the office of city treasurer, but that if the 

159 



LINCOLN — By MEN 

suggestion he should make did not meet with 
the favor of every delegate present, he would 
withdraw the name. He then put my name 
in nomination, but again said, "If there is 
any delegate on this floor opposed to the 
candidacy of Mr. Bunn, I do not wish his 
name to be voted upon or to go on the 
ticket.'* No one objected and I was nomi- 
nated by acclamation. 

When I saw who was nominating me and 
knew that he was an inmate of Mr. Lincoln's 
office, I, of course, knew very well that he 
was acting under Mr. Lincoln's orders. The 
result of the election was that I was chosen 
for treasurer, and, I may say, I was again 
chosen in 1858, in 1859 and in 1860. In 
all these campaigns I was, so to speak, 
**under the political wing" of Mr. Lincoln. 

A day or two after my first nomination 
for city treasurer I was going up town and 
saw Mr. Lincoln ahead of me. He waited 

160 



WHO KNEW HIM 

until I caught up and said to me, "How are 
you running?" I told him I didn't know 
how I was running. Then he said, "Have 
you asked anybody to vote for you?*' I 
said I had not. "Well," said he, " if you 
don't think enough of your success to ask 
anybody to vote for you, it is probable they 
will not do it, and that you will not be 
elected." I said to him, "Shall I ask Demo- 
crats to vote for me?" He said, "Yes, ask 
everybody to vote for you." Just then a 
well known Democrat by the name of Rags- 
dale was coming up the sidewalk. Lincoln 
said, "Now, you drop back there and ask 
Mr. Ragsdale to vote for you." I turned 
and fell in with Mr. Ragsdale, told him of 
my candidacy, and said I hoped he would 
support me. To my astonishment, he prom- 
ised me that he would. Mr. Lincoln walked 
slowly along and fell in with me again, and 

said, "Well, what did Ragsdale say? Will 
161 



LINCOLN — By MEN 

he vote for you?" I said, *'Yes, he told me 
he would." "Well, then," said Lincoln, 
**you are sure of two votes at the election, 
mine and Ragsdale's." This was my first 
lesson in practical politics, and I received it 
from a high source. 

In the year 1861 , when it was about time 
to nominate a treasurer again, I had a con- 
versation with Mr. Lincoln. He asked me if 
I was going to run again for treasurer. I 
said, "Mr. Lincoln, do you not think that 
men frequently run for office too often for 
their own good?" He replied, "Yes, they 
very often do." I gathered from this that 
he probably thought I had better not run 
again, and so I dropped out of the race. 

I may here relate a little incident which is 
characteristic of Lincoln. During the time 
between the election of Lincoln and his de- 
parture from Springfield to go to Washing- 
ton, he had his office in the old State House 

162 



WHO KNEW HIM 

— a building which still stands on the public 
square, though it has been repaired and a 
good deal changed. I was, of course, very 
greatly interested in the campaign in which 
the Republicans had succeeded in electing 
Lincoln. I was on a local committee which 
had charge of matters in Springfield and 
Sangamon county and was treasurer of the 
committee. One day, after the election had 
resulted successfully, I went up to Mr. Lin- 
coln's room in the State House, and as I 
went up the stairs I met Salmon P. Chase 
of Ohio just coming away. When I en- 
tered the room I said to Mr. Lincoln, rather 
abruptly, "You don't want to put that man 
in your cabinet." It was an impertinent re- 
mark on my part, but Mr. Lincoln received 
it kindly and replied to me in a characteristic 
way, by saying, "Why do you say that?" 
"Because," I said, "he thinks he is a great 
deal bigger than you are." "Well," said 

163 



LINCOLN — By MEN 

Lincoln, "do you know of any other men 
who think they are bigger than I am?" I 
rephed, "I do not know that I do, but why 
do you ask me that?" "Because/* said Mr. 
Lincoln, "I want to put them all in my cabi- 
net.'* This is, perhaps, unimportant talk- 
but I think it shows a real characteristic of 
Lincoln and shows that he was not afraid 
to match himself against other men, however 
prominent they might be. 

I always had a deep admiration and rev- 
erence for Mr. Lincoln and, of course, was 
very active, in my way, in forwarding his 
candidacy in the campaign of 1 860. After 
the campaign was over and had been suc- 
cessful, I was once in Lincoln's office in the 
State House, when some question came up 
about my having spent a great deal of time 
in and about the canvass locally. Lincoln 
asked me some questions which brought out 
the fact that I had spent a good deal of my 

164 



WHO KNEW HIM 

own money in the canvass — a thousand dol- 
lars, or more. Mr. Lincoln said to me that 
I v/as not able to lose that money. He 
spoke very seriously. I replied, "Yes, Mr. 
Lincoln, I am able to lose it, because when 
you go to Washington you are going to give 
me an office." This statement seemed to 
almost startle him. The look on his face 
grew very serious. He said to me that he 
had not promised me any office whatever. 
I replied, "No, Mr. Lincoln, you have not 
promised me anything, but you are going to 
give me an office just the same." "What 
office do you think I am going to give you?*' 
asked Mr. Lincoln. I said, "The office of 
pension agent here in Illinois. During Isaac 
B. Curran's term as pension agent under Bu- 
chanan I have done all the work in the 
office, in order to get the deposits in my 
brother's bank. The salary amounts to 

$ 1 ,000 a year, and when you go to Wash- 

165 



L I N C O L N — By MEN 

ington you are going to give me that office.'* 
To this he made no word of reply. He did 
not say he would give me the office, or that 
he would not, but on the 7th of March, 
1861, I was appointed to the office of pen- 
sion agent of Illinois by Caleb B. Smith, 
Secretary of the Interior. 

I do not believe that anything on earth 
could have extracted a promise from Mr. 
Lincoln to give me that office, nor do I think 
he would have bargained to give any man 
an administrative office before or after his 
election. It is probable that he had selected 
the members of his cabinet, and that he had 
advised them of the fact before they were 
appointed, but, outside of his cabinet officers, 
I do not believe he promised anybody an 
office before the day of his inauguration, and 
yet the incident I have above related shows 
that he was not by any means insensible to 

ordinary political considerations. 
166 



WHO KNEW HIM 

Lincoln was the leading lawyer in central 
Illinois before his election to the presidency. 
He was universally respected for his purity 
and his uprightness and for the rigid integrity 
that he never failed to exhibit in all the rela- 
tions of life. He received from all who came 
in contact with him the high respect and con- 
sideration which was due to his position 
and to his great ability and character. 

Very truly yours, 

John W. Bunn. 



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